The subject of the investigation is the development of the legal foundations of railway construction in Prussia and their practical effects on the establishment and construction projects of several significant railway companies. The first part presents the founding of the railway companies, while the second part deals with land acquisition. The temporal focus of the work is on the early years of railway construction up to approximately 1860. The first railways were predominantly built by private companies in the legal form of joint-stock companies. Since there was initially no stock corporation law in the areas where the General Land Law for the Prussian states applied, the founding of the companies primarily raised questions of stock law. For the Prussian state, the question arose to what extent railway construction should be left solely to private entrepreneurs.