The shoe brake of the KTX is used in low speed when the electric brake is not effective. The main purpose of the shoe brake is to stop the train to a desired stop point at the station. Lots of defects have been encountered in the shoe brake unit since the KTX started its operation. To improve the reliability of shoe brake unit of the KTX power car, first of all, failure modes of the KTX shoe brake unit were analyzed. Main failure modes are cracks in the shoe friction material and fracture in the welded joints of the shoe backing steel structure. Several methods to remove the defects of the shoe brake unit were proposed and on-board tests were carried out: Increase of the strength of the shoe key and shoe cam, which decreased a little the occurrence of cracks in the shoe friction material; Redesign of the shoe backing steel structure, which eliminated the occurrence of the cracks in the backing plate but could not solve completely the crack problem in the shoe friction material; Development of a new friction material, which with redesign of the shoe backing steel structure could solve satisfactorily the crack problem in the shoe friction material.