Using Iranian, British, and Danish archival documents as well as oral accounts from Iran, this paper examines how tribal groups in the southwestern Iranian province of Lorestan responded to the increased presence of the centralizing state in the Reza Shah period (1926-41). During this period, the Pahlavi state launched various construction projects in Lorestan, including the Trans-Iranian Railway and the Khorramabad Road while implementing such policies as the forced sedentarization of tribes, the sartorial uniformity law, and the expansion of modern education. In this context of increased state interventions, how did state-society relations change in tribal areas? What role did the coming of transportation infrastructure play in the process of change? How did it impact the socioeconomic structure of Lorestan? Until recently, Iranian historiography internalized the urban elites’ view and considered the confrontation between the centralizing state and tribes as an inevitable consequence of modernization. While recent scholarship challenges this view and presents an erratic narrative imbued with various contingencies, the basic paradigm of the Foucauldian notion of discipline versus subaltern resistance remains largely intact. In contrast, by looking at tribal groups who lived along the routes of the newly constructed Trans-Iranian Railway in Lorestan, this study proposes another way to analyze the changing state-society relations in the Reza Shah period. This paper argues that for some Lor and Arab tribes along the routes, such as the Papis, engagement with the state from within the evolving power relations was a viable option. The coming of transportation infrastructure enabled new ways of engaging with various branches of the state and quasi-state institutions, including the Scandinavian-administered railway consortium and the Railway Organization (bongah-e rah ahan). Even for Lor subtribes who were considered the most “barbaric” and “recalcitrant” by urban elites, the response to the new state presence was not necessarily resistance. They actively gauged the changing situations and sought to remain an indispensable part of local socioeconomic structure by pursuing employment as guards and construction laborers.