Abstract: Current thermal characteristics of push-type furnace and heating technique of billet for heavy rail was evaluated based on the experiments of embedding thermal couples and determining energy balance. On the basis, the heating technique and the thermal schedule were optimized. The productive operation shows that the fluctuation of billet temperature is lowered from ±40℃ to ±20℃, difference in billet profile temperature is lessened from 65℃ to 45℃, the loss of metal oxidation is reduced from 1.755% to 0.92%, and the decarburization depth of rails is decreased from 0.35~0.82 mm to 0.2~0.5 mm, while, the annual production of heavy rail is increased from 400,000 tons to 500,000 tons.