This is my first time using Tekkit and I've been having this same issue. Sometimes it never even got to the "adding materials" part. I think RedPower may be the issue; after I started adding the mods one by one the server was able to boot up entirely until I added RP. Here's the list of mods I finished with (I purposely left some out just because I didn't want them, so they might work too): AdditionalPipes, Railcraft, Buildcraft, codechickencore, IC2, nuclearcontrol, chargingbench, ironchests, nei, wrcbe-addons, and wrcbe-core. I don't even know what those last two are...nei?
Edit: After booting another time, I noticed that it did go through the "adding materials" part but it actually finished booting using the same mods I listed above.