The
Boston and Worcester Railroad began construction of the Milford Branch in early 1847, heading south from their mainline at Framingham, and opened from Framingham to Holliston by September 1847. and by July 1848 had reached its southern terminus in Milford. Originally, the line was proposed to continue south to
Woonsocket, Rhode Island, but this would have interfered with the
Norfolk County Railroad, so it was decided to terminate the line in Milford. This line was built in stages between 1869 and 1872. Passenger service could not last much longer, and the Milford Branch's very last passenger train arrived into Milford on the evening of March 28, 1959, after 111 years of service. Freight service still continued under the B&A, but the line was by this point an unimportant branchline. Eventually, as with the rest of the former B&A, the Milford Branch came under the control of
Penn Central in their 1968 creation. The line continued having minimal freight service throughout the 1960s and 70s, but in the early 1980s, the line—which was then owned by
Conrail—was abandoned. Throughout the 1980s, 90s, and into the 2000s, the line sat abandoned, with tracks at least partially intact until 2004. A rail yard on the line in Framingham, known as the Constructive Placement (CP) yard, was once used by Mazda, Ford, and General Motors to unload cars delivered by rail. Automobile unloading stopped in February 2009 after operations moved to
East Brookfield, Massachusetts. The yard started being used for a rail
transloading facility in July 2024, with CSX moving railcars in and out of the yard 2-3 times per week. Starting in 2017, portions of the rail line began being converted into the Upper Charles Rail Trail, which as of 2024 has been completed from Whitney Street in
Sherborn south to Downtown
Milford.
Remnants The following remnants still exist along the line: • The right-of-way from Sherborn to Milford is preserved as the Upper Charles Rail Trail. • The 8-Arch Bridge, also known as the Holliston Viaduct or the Woolen Mill Bridge, still stands slightly north of Holliston. • The Phipps Tunnel still remains just south of Holliston.
Modern transit The
MetroWest Regional Transit Authority route 6 roughly parallels the former path of the line. == Station listing ==