The dynamic characteristics of a railway vehicle system under unsteady aerodynamic loads are examined in this study. A dynamic analysis model of the railway vehicle considering the influences of aerodynamic loads was established. The model not only considers the forced excitation effect of unsteady aerodynamic loads but also accounts for the effect of unsteady aerodynamic loads on the change of the wheel-rail contact normal forces as well as changes of the wheelset creep coefficients and creep forces/moments. Therefore, this model also considers the influences of unsteady aerodynamic loads on the self-excited vibration characteristics of the vehicle system. The time-history curves, phase trajectory diagrams, Poincare sections, and Lyapunov exponents of the vehicle system running on a smooth straight track under unsteady aerodynamic loads were determined. The results show that when the critical speed is exceeded, the vehicle system usually performs quasi-periodic motion under unsteady aerodynamic loads, which is significantly different from the periodic motion under steady aerodynamic loads. In different cases, the amplitude and phase of motion are significantly different. The amplitude of the motions can be increased by more than 159%, and the difference of phase can be up to 173 degrees. (The phase is almost reversed.) The dynamic responses of the vehicle system under unsteady aerodynamic loads contain abundant frequency components, including the frequency of the self-excited vibration, the frequency of the forced excitation, and combinations of their integer multiples. The vibration forms corresponding to the main harmonic components under unsteady and steady aerodynamic loads were compared, and the self-excited vibration component of the vehicle system under unsteady aerodynamic loads was identified. The variations in the critical speed with various parameter combinations were computed. The variation range of the critical velocity can reach 73%.