This paper outlines the main benefits of using Internet technologies for the remote monitoring of railway equipment. We present two prototypes of a remote monitoring tool for railway equipment. The first has a 2-tier architecture and is based on Java technology and Java RMI as a communication protocol. The second has a 3-tier architecture and is based on XML/XSL technology and HTTP as a communication protocol. We compare both systems and we give some conclusions from the actual work. This paper is intended for people concerned with industrial applications on the Internet and especially for those developing remote monitoring tools for embedded systems.