Patrick Tracy Jackson led the task of convincing the state legislature to fund the project.

The investors were successful because they convinced the legislature that the canal was inherently incapable of providing what they needed: reliable, year-round freight transport.

The people along the road and in terminal-end cities bought large amounts of stock, financing half the company.

The Board of Directors of the Boston and Lowell Railroad, armed with a charter, now had the task of surveying and building the line.

No one had any idea of the future possibility of railroads acting as public transportation, or if they did they were not paid any attention by the builders or financiers of the road.

The path sloped up at a gentle ten feet per mile at the maximum, and there were only three grade crossings over the entire 26-mile (42 km) distance.

This would have to be corrected later with various spurs (the one to Medford being built off the Boston and Maine Railroad), but were always sources of annoyance to both riders and operators.

The proposed route was accepted by the Board of Directors of the Boston and Lowell Railroad, and work began on the building phase.

Yankee and Irish laborers were hired to construct the railroad, which was made especially difficult and because the Directors wanted to make the road using the best techniques then known.

On May 27, 1835, it made its maiden trip to Boston, with Patrick Tracy Jackson, George Washington Whistler, and James Baldwin aboard.

The much poorer Boston and Worcester Railroad could not afford a granite bed and so was built with modern wooden ties.

This turned out to be far superior, so the owners of the Boston and Lowell decided they would upgrade their entire roadbed to wood when they added a second track.

[3]: 92  Trains traveled on unwelded rails which were laid on a granite roadbed, which made for an extremely bumpy ride.

[3]: 84 The Boston and Lowell was faced with a new problem; it had a reputation for speed which made it very popular and highly competitive with stagecoaches.

The Boston and Lowell ordered another locomotive and cars for local passenger rail in 1842, and had them make six stops along the route.

The B&M soon tired of what they perceived as selfishness and decided to build its own track to Boston from Haverhill so that it would not have to rely on the B&L.

The B&L tried to fight the B&M in court but failed because the monopoly granted in its charter was only good for traffic between Boston and Lowell.

The B&M tried to deal with this in court, and got the judge to forbid the B&L from raising rates until the case was done, but by the time they were close to an agreement, the bypass was complete.

The Stony Brook Railroad was chartered in 1845 and opened in 1848, connecting the Nashua and Lowell at North Chelmsford with Ayer.

The first section opened in 1881, splitting from the B&L's Lexington and Arlington Branch at North Cambridge Junction, and the company was reorganized as the Central Massachusetts Railroad in 1883.

The Northern Railroad was also chartered in 1844, opening in 1847 from Concord to Lebanon, New Hampshire, and later extending to White River Junction, Vermont.

Along with extensions and branches, it was leased to the Boston, Concord and Montreal Railroad in 1859 and consolidated into it in 1872, becoming its White Mountains Division.

With the advent of the internal combustion engine, trains slowly began to lose their advantage as a transportation option.

Automobiles and trucks began to increase in popularity as highways improved, siphoning ridership and freight traffic off railroads.

The advent of the Interstate Highway System tipped the economic balance by increasing mobility as factories and offices were now able to be located further away from the fixed routes of the railroads.

The decline in both passenger and freight traffic occurred at a point when the B&M, like most other railroads, had just switched over to diesel locomotives, meaning that they had large debts.

The new state agency bought the Lowell line, along with the Haverhill and all other commuter operations in the Greater Boston area.

It emerged from the court's protection when newly formed Guilford Transportation Industries (GTI) bought it in 1983.

During the years since B&M's bankruptcy, highway congestion has increased significantly, resulting in growing demand for passenger and freight options.

In 2001, it opened the Anderson Regional Transportation Center on the Boston & Lowell to centralize ridership and provide a superstation with convenient access to Interstates 93 and 95 (Route 128).