The railway was incorporated March 31, 1853 and received a charter to build railway lines from Halifax to Pictou by way of Truro, as well as from Halifax to Victoria Beach, Nova Scotia on the Annapolis Basin opposite Digby by way of Windsor.

One noteworthy early feature of operations on the Nova Scotia Railway was the first known case of intermodal operations involving the "piggyback" transport of road vehicles on railway cars.

Farmers in the Windsor area were able to drive their teams of horses and loaded wagons onto railway cars and be transported into Halifax to sell their loads, returning to Windsor the same day.

The Government of Canada dissolved the NSR in 1872 when it became part of the Intercolonial Railway.

The Halifax to Truro line remains part of CN, however the rest of the Eastern Line from Truro to Pictou was sold by CN in 1993 to the Cape Breton and Central Nova Scotia Railway as part of CN's sale of the entire Truro to Sydney line.