A Committee for Design Standards for Railway Structures & Commentaries [Foundation and Retaining Structures] (Chairman Prof. Osamu KUSAKABE, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Vice-chairman Prof. Junichi KOSEKI, Tokyo University) was established in 2005 to draft a revised version of "Design Standards for Railway Structures & Commentaries [Foundation and Retaining Structures]" presented at the last committee meeting in July 2008. The revised sections were "an introduction to performance based design"; "design model revision taking into account the subgrade reaction modulus" and "an introduction to new foundation materials and foundation construction methods". This paper discusses the recent trends in railway foundation design technology, and highlights from the contents of the revised version.