To build and maintain transportation facilities, such as railroad and highways, is not just about transporting people and profiting. The infrastructure of transportation was already in the antiquity considered an effective way of controlling a territory. National State's principled position during the 19th-century railway building shows significant differences from nation to nation and over time. Each countries railroad network was built after unique principle and with different goals in mind.This article briefly discusses the 19th-century Tsarish railway construction in nuclear counties and provinces. Conditions in Finland and the Baltic countries are devoted particular interest, and in the latter case developments are followed to our present day.