Rail industry is rapidly developing, and rail becomes ever more viable in a wide range of regions. Therefore, the passenger experience and comfort has become a major concern for operators in the world. Heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems are used in railways to provide passengers thermal comfort and proper air motion. The ventilation system is one of the main elements of the system. Its components include both mechanical and electronic devices. All components are subjected to stress, and this tends to reduce their life cycle; the reliability of the ventilation system must be evaluated to plan and schedule appropriate maintenance activities. The paper evaluates reliability of the ventilation system using fault tree analysis and a reliability block diagram. Both techniques analyse data qualitatively; moreover, with specific algorithms they also provide quantitative results in term of reliability and probability of system failure. The paper compares the two reliability evaluation methods to verify their accuracy.