Rail grinding is the main maintenance process for rails to keep the rail track in a safe and operational state.The most commonly used technique is the preventive maintenance where rails are reprofiled on a regular basis to remove any potential defects and maintain a desirable rail profile.A study to analyse the effect of preventive maintenance on the different rail grades took place to investigate the technique.This paper reports the findings of preventive grinding experiments performed on a laboratory environment.Various rail grades were utilised to assess the effectiveness of the preventive grinding process and study its effect on their surface quality.Results with regards to the mass loss, and the grinding induced roughness were collected.WEL was detected on the contact surface indicating a phase transformation due to the grinding process.Measurements with regards to the WEL thickness were collected and a comparison between the various rail grades was done.Consequently, rolling/sliding experiments were performed on the ground samples to evaluate their post-grinding performance and study the development of the friction coefficient as well as roughness.Correlations were done with regards to the roughness development and the coefficient of friction.The initial low friction values were associated with the high grinding-induces roughness values.After the smoothing of the asperities the coefficient of friction was stabilised.