The complex service environment of railway vehicles leads to changes in the wheel–rail adhesion coefficient, and the decrease in critical speed may lead to hunting instability. This paper aims to reveal the diversity of periodic hunting motion patterns and the internal correlation relationship with wheel–rail impact velocities after the hunting instability of a bogie system. A nonlinear, non-smooth lateral dynamic model of a bogie system with 7 degrees of freedom is constructed. The wheel–rail contact relations and the piecewise smooth flange forces are the main nonlinear, non-smooth factors in the system. Based on Poincaré mapping and the two-parameter co-simulation theory, hunting motion modes and existence regions are obtained in the parameter plane consisting of running speed v and the wheel–rail adhesion coefficient μ. Three-dimensional cloud maps of the maximum lateral wheel–rail impact velocity are obtained, and the correlation with the hunting motion pattern is analyzed. The coexistence of periodic hunting motions is further revealed based on combined bifurcation diagrams and multi-initial value phase diagrams. The results show that grazing bifurcation causes the number of wheel–rail impacts to increase at a low-speed range. Periodic hunting motion with period number n = 1 has smaller lateral wheel–rail impact velocities, whereas chaotic motion induces more severe wheel–rail impacts. Subharmonic periodic hunting motion windows within the speed range of chaotic motion, pitchfork bifurcation, and jump bifurcation are the primary forms that induce the coexistence of periodic motion.

A two‐degree‐of‐freedom periodically forced system with multiple gaps and rigid constraints is studied. Multiple types of impact vibrations occur at each rigid constraint and interact with each other, which results in the emergence of some complex transitions in the system. Through the cosimulation of the key parameters gap value δ between the two masses and the excitation force frequency ω, the types, existence areas, and bifurcation regularities of the periodic and subharmonic motions can be obtained on the (ω, δ)‐parameter plane. In the corresponding three‐dimensional surface diagram of the maximum impact velocity, the distribution law of the maximum impact velocity at each constraint can be obtained. The transition laws of fundamental impact motions in the low‐frequency parameter domain are studied, and two types of transition regions in the transitions of adjacent fundamental impact motions are found: tongue‐like regions and hysteresis regions. Moreover, these two types of transition regions show some atypical partitioning and deformation due to the combined effects of impact vibrations at each constraint. By combining the two‐parameter plane diagram and the three‐dimensional surface diagram, the effect of changing the gap values between each mass and the fixed constraint and the damping coefficient ζ on the dynamic characteristics of the system is studied. Combining the existence areas of periodic motions and the distribution of maximum impact velocity can provide guidance for the reasonable selection of system parameters.