In order to evaluate the strength of carbody structures of railway rolling stock made of laminated fiber-reinforced composite materials, total laminate approach was introduced. Structural analyses were conducted to check the basic design of hybrid composite carbody structures of the Korean Tilting Train eXpress(TTX) with the service speed of 180km/h. The mechanical tests were also conducted to obtain strengths of composite laminates. The results show that all stress components of composite carbody structures are inside of failure envelopes and total laminate approach is recommended to predict the failure of hybrid composite carbody structures at the stage of the basic design.