The purpose of this paper is as follows: (1) Optimizing the parameters of microwave digestion-atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) and establishing method for the determination of heavy metals in artificial soils. (2) Evaluating heavy metal pollution conditions in artificial soil samples from railway rock-cut slopes. The results showed that the mixture of HNO3-H2O2-HF was found to have the best digestion efficiency; under the optimized conditions, the recoveries of the method ranged from 95% to 105%; the measurement precision and the relative deviation were less than 4% and 5%, respectively; the concentrations of Cd, Pb and Zn were significantly higher in the artificial soil on railway rock-cut slope than in the control soil, and they were 4.7, 1.3 and 1.2 times as much as the control soil, respectively; compared to the contents of Cr, Cu and Fe in control soils, there was no significant difference. This research will provide a reliable method for determining metal elements in artificial soils on rock-cut slopes and a theoretical basis for the management of the railway rock-cut slopes.