The aim of this chapter is to show and compare problems of railway trans-port in the past and at the present. Using the historical method, I will demon-strate the nature of the historical illusion and the danger associated with it in the strategic formulation of contemporary railway reform. In the first section I will explain why I chose the historical method and I will describe its application to railway transport. In the second section, I will identify individual problems with railway transport and explain the difficulties connected with this identification. In the third section, I will present the process of solving the individual problems which are based on a historical principle: I will demonstrate, with typical his-torical examples, how the current problems of the railways are really old ones and how successfully or unsuccessfully they were solved as early as 150 years ago, with practically the same instruments which are on offer today. In the last section I will formulate and express a few conclusions and recommendations for the concept of transport policy in relation to railways.