It ran from a connection with the end of the Charles River Branch Railroad in Dover to Bellingham through the current-day towns of Medfield, Millis, and Medway.
[1]: 395 In 1847, a petition was filed with the Legislature of Massachusetts to build a rail line linking greater Boston to the Rhode Island border.
[1]: 395 From this time through the 1880s, the Back Bay region of Boston was filled in, and the railroad was used to haul stone from quarries in Needham.
In order to complete the connection to the rest of its network, the New York and Boston Railroad added a one-mile long stretch of track from Bellingham to its terminus in Woonsocket, Rhode Island.
The line was leased for 999 years to the Boston, Hartford and Erie Railroad on December 1, 1864, and outright consolidated with it on January 4, 1865.
Reports of under-powered trains stalling due to a lack of steam abounded,[2] and in 1873 the Boston, Hartford, and Erie Railroad declared bankruptcy.
[6] The New York and New England Railroad faced many of the same problems as its predecessors, principally continued operation on lines that were otherwise not profitable.
On August 22, 1998, the Surface Transportation Board approved the buyout of Conrail by CSX and Norfolk Southern, but the tracks of the former New York and Boston Railroad were instead acquired by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.