In 1879, Boston & Maine consisted of a line from Boston to Portland with one or two minor branch lines. By 1888, it had leased or acquired enough other railroads to become a New England powerhouse.

Click image to download a 12.0-MB PDF of this brochure, which is from the David Rumsey map collection.

First, it leased the Eastern Railroad, which had a competing line to Portland as well as lines to Conway, Saugus, Wakefield, Marblehead, and Rockport. Next, it leased the Worchester, Nashua & Portland, giving it a line from Portland to Worchester, Massachusetts. Then it leased the Boston & Lowell, giving it lines to central Massachusetts and northern New Hampshire. It also owned a large share of the Maine Central, which continued to operate as a separate but cooperative company.

All of these leases and acquisitions gave B&M a commanding presence in New England. Although this is geographically a small part of the country, in the late nineteenth century it was one of the nation’s main manufacturing and financial centers. B&M would continue expanding, acquiring the Connecticut River Railroad, the Boston, Concord & Montreal, and the Fitchburg.

The 1879 timetable shows the Boston & Lowell, Boston & Maine, Eastern, and Fitchburg all leaving Boston from four different trains located within a few blocks of one another. By 1893, when North Station was constructed in the shadow of these other stations, all of these lines except the Fitchburg were controlled by Boston & Maine, and the Fitchburg would be added in 1900.

This timetable shows eight trains a day between Boston and Portland, four on the B&M line and four on the ex-Eastern line. The fastest trains on the Eastern route took 4 hours and 10 minutes; the B&M route took as little as 4.