Abstract This study investigates a hybrid zero‐voltage switching converter for dc–dc converters on railway vehicle applications or solar PV power conversion applications. The dc–dc converters used in railway applications demand to have at least 30% to 40% input voltage variation in order to meet the international standard EN50155. However, the main nominal dc input voltages of power converters on railway applications are from 24 to 110 V. To overcome the wide voltage operation problem, a hybrid power converter with the combination of boost and resonant circuits is proposed and investigated to accomplish a wide input voltage operation (10–160 V) on railway vehicle applications. Under low‐voltage input case ( V in = 10–40 V), both boost and resonant circuits are activated to have high voltage gain. For medium‐voltage input case ( V in = 40–80 V), only full‐bridge resonant circuit is operated to achieve soft switching operation on active devices. Under high‐voltage input case ( V in = 80–160 V), the half‐bridge type resonant circuit is activated to achieve less voltage gain. The circuit performance and effectiveness are provided and evaluated by experiments.