Original line The
Boston and Lowell Railroad was chartered on June 5, 1830, and opened between its namesake cities on June 24, 1835. On March 15, 1833, while the B&L was under construction, the Andover and Wilmington Railroad was incorporated to build a branch line from
Wilmington to
Andover. The A&W opened on August 8, 1836; it became the Andover & Haverhill Railroad which was quickly merged into the nascent
Boston and Maine Railroad. By 1843 the B&M ran from Wilmington to
Portland, Maine; however, it was still dependent on the B&L to reach Boston. The B&M opened a new route (the Western Route) from Wilmington Junction (three miles north of Wilmington) to Boston via
Reading in July 1845, thus negating the need for the original line between Wilmington and Wilmington Junction. The B&L operated the line for three years; its abandonment in 1848 was the first railroad abandonment in New England.
Rebuilt line In 1874, the B&L rebuilt the line; some sections are on the original grade, while others are slightly west. Rather than connecting to the B&M mainline, this Wilmington Branch paralleled the Western Route to a new Wilmington Junction station at the junction with the
Salem and Lowell Branch. This gave the B&L a route to Lowell via the S&L and the
Lowell and Lawrence Railroad.
Cutbacks On June 14, 1959, the B&M introduced a series of service cutbacks, including the abandonment of the north half of the
Woburn Loop. The Western Route was abandoned from
Reading to Wilmington Junction; all service to Haverhill and beyond was rerouted via the Wilmington Branch.
North Wilmington on the Western Route was replaced with
Salem Street station, the first station ever built on the Wilmington Branch. That single trip was cut in June 1976. From September 9 to November 5, 2023, all outer Haverhill Line service was routed over the Wildcat Branch during signal work on the inner part of the Haverhill Line. Beginning May 20, 2024, weekday midday inbound trains were again temporarily routed over the Wildcat Branch during construction work. As of 2025, two Haverhill Line trains operate over the Wildcat Branch each weekday: one inbound train in the morning and one outbound train in the evening. These trains run express between
North Station and
Ballardvale and do not stop at any Lowell Line stations. The line also carries some freight service by
CSX Transportation (formerly
Pan Am Railways), primarily the train "DOBO" (
Dover, New Hampshire, to
Boston), which mainly hauls sand and gravel from the
New Hampshire Northcoast railroad to the Boston Sand and Gravel facility in Somerville. == See also ==