“七五”铁路承包，虽然打破了铁路完全依赖国家的单纯生产型的封闭机制，建立了自我发展、自我积累的机制。但从总体看，铁路企业尚未充分活起来，仍处在运能不足、资金短缺、缺乏自我发展能力的困境之中。原因是多方面的。但深层次的原因，主要是两个方面的问题。一是铁路的社会公益性与铁路企业经济性的矛盾没有得到妥善解决；二是目前铁路经营机制的主要环节，即铁路运输计划模式和运价管理体制与我国有计划商品经济的运行机制相悖。铁路要适应“八五”国民经济的发展，必须把正确认识和解决好以上两个矛盾做为出发点和着眼点，去探求增强自我发展能力的途径。本文仅就后一矛盾进行探讨。 Although the “Seventh Five-Year” railway contract broke the railway’s completely closed mechanism of relying solely on the state’s production-oriented system, it established a self-development and self-accumulation mechanism. However, on the whole, the railway enterprises have not fully survived and are still in the predicament of lack of transport capacity, shortage of funds and lack of self-development capability. There are many reasons. But the deep-seated reasons are mainly two aspects. First, the contradiction between the social welfare of the railway and the economy of the railway enterprises has not been properly solved; second, the main links of the current railway management mechanism, that is, the railway transportation planning mode and the tariff management system run counter to the operating mechanism of China’s planned commodity economy. To meet the development of the national economy in the Eighth Five-Year Plan, the railway must make a correct understanding and resolution of the above two contradictions as a starting point and an eye-opening point and explore ways to enhance its ability to develop itself. This article only discusses the latter contradiction.