To improve the railway networks, track components with greater durability are essential. To this end, we clad a layer of premium material on railhead to reduce wear and the likelihood of fatigue in an effective manner. However, the resulting residual stress in the clad and substrate and changes in their microstructure can be detrimental to their integrity. We propose to measure their residual stress to validate our finite element model for both high and low durability specimens. We will sequentially fatigue the specimens and monitor their residual stress at critical points to study shakedown and possible cracking. A drop in residual stress is a surrogate for crack initiation; early detection of cracks allows us to study the crack initiation site and its surrounding microstructure. This will help optimise the cladding parameters to achieve greater clad durability.