In 1949, the line was purchased by a newly formed Warwick Railway, which ended electrified service in favor of diesel locomotives in 1952, and abandoned another mile (1.6 km) of track in 1954.

[2] The last spike was driven to complete this 8.52-mile (13.71 km) long line on December 3, 1874, at a total cost of approximately $200,000 (equivalent to $4,574,706 in 2020); passenger service began on July 4 of the following year.

Service became unreliable, with anecdotes of passengers gathering water from nearby wells to feed the dummy's boiler when it ran dry during operations.

[3] Oscar Greene had previously been a motorman with the United Electric Railway when it operated the line, as had Loris J. Bass, the company's only other employee.

[3] In 1976, the company's assets, not counting the Greenes, were "two working locomotives, an engine house, nine-tenths of a mile of straight track, an office and one employee", and it served three industrial customers in Cranston.

The Interstate Commerce Commission authorized the P&W to take over rail service starting August 14, 1979, citing the Warwick's "economic inability ... to continue operations".

[9] In late 2016, Providence and Worcester work crews arrived and began restoring the right of way ahead of a potential return of the tracks to active use, removing all vegetation.

This upset local residents, who appealed to the Cranston mayor to intervene; he was unable to do so, as railroad right of ways are regulated by the state and federal governments.

Subsequently, representatives from P&W and the prospective customer, a waste oil processing company, attended a meeting with local residents to listen to their concerns about safety and noise.