[1]: 427–428 The main line ran from a junction with the Boston and Providence Railroad in Mansfield through the towns of Norton, Taunton, Berkley, Lakeville, and Freetown to the deep-water whaling port of New Bedford.
[1]: 424 On March 5, 1883, the Boston, Clinton, Fitchburg and New Bedford Railroad was outright consolidated into the Old Colony network.
[1] By the 1960s, the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, like many railroads, was struggling to stay solvent in the face of increased competition from alternate modes of transportation, and so in 1961 it petitioned to be included in the newly formed Penn Central Transportation Company.
On August 22, 1998, the Surface Transportation Board approved the buyout of Conrail by CSX and Norfolk Southern, with the former assuming control of the former New Bedford Railroad, including the former Middleborough and Taunton Railroad line that had been sold in 1874.
Sections of this portion of the line have been converted to Old Colony Road, Fairfield Park, the Mansfield Municipal Airport, and the WWII Veterans Memorial Trail.