Passenger service is provided on the line by Amtrak, as part of their Lake Shore Limited service, and by the MBTA Commuter Rail system, which owns the section east of Worcester and operates it as its Framingham/Worcester Line.

When the Erie Canal opened in 1825, New York City's advantageous water connection through the Hudson River threatened Boston's historical dominance as a trade center.

Since the Berkshires made construction of a canal infeasible, Boston turned to the emerging railroad technology for a share of the freight to and from the Midwestern United States.

[4] Construction began in 1837, and the Eastern Division to the Connecticut River in Springfield opened on October 1, 1839.

The summit of Charlton Hill drainage divide between the Atlantic coast and the Connecticut River is a rock cut 57 mi (92 km) west of Boston.

The connection from Boston to Albany formed the longest and most expensive point-to-point railroad yet constructed in the United States.

This lease passed to the New York Central Railroad in 1914; throughout this, the B&A kept its own branding in the public eye.

The Castleton Cut-Off with a very large hi-level bridge over the Hudson River was built from the B&A at Post Road to a new rail yard at Selkirk, New York, to avoid the steep NYC grade from the Hudson River up West Albany Hill.

[2] In 1883, the B&A acquired track then owned by the New York and New England Railroad as far as Newton Highlands, and, in 1884, began the construction of a line northwest to the B&A mainline, creating a commuter loop.

"The Circuit," as this route was called, officially opened in May 1886, providing double-track operation from downtown Boston through Brookline to Newton Highlands, then north into Riverside, and four tracks on the mainline from Riverside back to downtown so that commuter and mainline operations did not conflict.

[5][6][7] The last passenger service on the line on April 30, 1971, before the creation of Amtrak was an unnamed Chicago-bound successor to the New York Central's New England States.

[8] The intercity trips were taken over by Amtrak on May 1, 1971, and, on January 27, 1973, the MBTA acquired the line east of Framingham.

The MBTA acquired the rest of the line from Framingham to Worcester as part of an agreement announced in 2009.

[9][10] As part of the deal, clearances on the line west of Interstate 495 were improved, permitting full double stack service from Selkirk Yard in New York to an expanded CSX intermodal freight facility in Worcester and a transload facility near I-495.

The Boston & Albany hosted many named long-distance trains of the New York Central system.

Most of the right-of-way (except for the short active section in Framingham) has been converted to part of the Upper Charles Rail Trail.

[12][13] That same year, the B&A hired architect Henry Hobson Richardson to design a series of passenger stations.

Over the next five years, Richardson was responsible for nine B&A stations (Auburndale, Chestnut Hill, Elliot, Waban, and Woodland (Newton, MA), Wellesley Hills, Brighton, South Framingham, and Palmer), as well as a dairy building; he also provided designs for passenger cars.

After Richardson's death, the B&A commissioned his successors, Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, to design 23 additional stations between 1886 and 1894.

The B&A's innovative program of well-designed stations and landscape served as a model for several other railroads around the turn of the 20th century.

Mileposts noted here reflect the 1899 opening of South Station, which extended the line about 0.2 miles (0.32 km) from the previous Kneeland Street terminal.