MBTA Commuter Rail in the context of Newburyport, Massachusetts

The Northeast Corridor (NEC) is an electrified railroad line in the Northeast megalopolis of the United States. Owned primarily by Amtrak, it runs from Boston in the north to Washington, D.C., in the south, with major stops in Providence, New Haven, Stamford, New York City, Newark, Trenton, Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore. The NEC is roughly paralleled by Interstate 95 for most of its length. Carrying more than 2,200 trains a day, it is the busiest passenger rail line in the United States by ridership and service frequency.

The corridor is used by many Amtrak trains, including the high-speed Acela (formerly Acela Express), intercity trains, and several long-distance trains. Most of the corridor also has frequent commuter rail service, operated by the MBTA (Keolis), CT Rail, Metro-North Railroad, Long Island Rail Road, New Jersey Transit, SEPTA, and MARC. While large through freights have not run on the NEC since the early 1980s, some sections still carry smaller local freights operated by CSX, Norfolk Southern, CSAO, Providence and Worcester, New York and Atlantic, and Canadian Pacific. CSX and NS partly own their routes.

Keolis is a French transportation company that operates public transport systems all over the world. It manages bus, rapid transit, tram, coach networks, rental bikes, car parks, water taxi, cable car, trolleybus, and funicular services. Based in Paris, France, the company is 70% owned by SNCF and 30% owned by the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec.

Keolis operates a number of networks in France (Transports Bordeaux Métropole in Bordeaux, the Lyon public transport on behalf of SYTRAL, the public transport service for the Greater Rennes area since 1998, Ilévia in Lille, and the entire mobility chain in Dijon). Internationally, it manages buses in several cities in Sweden, central and eastern regions of the Netherlands, and in the United States. It also manages various rail networks internationally, such as the commuter rail in Boston, the Hyderabad Metro, the Docklands Light Railway in London, the Pujiang line of the Shanghai Metro, the Nottingham Express Transit, and the Manchester Metrolink.

South Station is a railroad terminal located at Dewey Square in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. It is the busiest railroad station in Greater Boston and the second-busiest transportation facility. It is New England's second-largest transportation center after Logan International Airport. Along with North Station, it is one of two Boston terminals for the MBTA Commuter Rail system and Amtrak intercity rail service. South Station is a major intermodal transit hub; the South Station Bus Terminal is located above the platforms, and the adjacent subway station is served by the Red Line and Silver Line of the MBTA subway system.

Four terminals were built near downtown Boston in the 19th century to serve railroads running south and west from Boston. South Station was constructed in 1899 to replace these terminals with a union station. The Classical Revival structure was designed by Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge. Passenger rail service declined during the 20th century; the bankrupt railroads sold the station to the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) in 1965. Portions of the station were demolished for redevelopment. Plans to demolish and redevelop the remaining section fell through; it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975 as South Station Headhouse.

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (abbreviated MBTA and known colloquially as "the T") is the public agency responsible for operating most public transportation services in Greater Boston, Massachusetts. The MBTA transit network includes the MBTA subway with three metro lines (the Blue, Orange, and Red lines), two light rail lines (the Green and Mattapan lines), and a five-line bus rapid transit system (the Silver Line); MBTA bus local and express service; the twelve-line MBTA Commuter Rail system, and several ferry routes. In 2024, the system had a ridership of 245,498,400, or about 864,400 per weekday as of the third quarter of 2025, of which the rapid transit lines averaged 328,100 and the light rail lines 120,200, making it the fourth-busiest rapid transit system and the third-busiest light rail system in the United States. As of the third quarter of 2025, average weekday ridership of the commuter rail system was 100,200, making it the fifth-busiest commuter rail system in the U.S.

The MBTA is the successor of several previous public and private operators. Privately operated transit in Boston began with commuter rail in 1834 and horsecar lines in 1856. The various horsecar companies were consolidated under the West End Street Railway in the 1880s and electrified over the next decade. The Boston Elevated Railway (BERy) succeeded the West End in 1897; over the next several decades, the BERy built a partially-publicly owned rapid transit system, beginning with the Tremont Street subway in 1897. The BERy came under the control of public trustees in 1919, and was subsumed into the fully-publicly owned Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) in 1947. The MTA was in turn succeeded in 1964 by the MBTA, with an expanded funding district to fund declining suburban commuter rail service. In its first two decades, the MBTA took over the commuter rail system from the private operators and continued expansion of the rapid transit system. Originally established as an individual department within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the MBTA became a division of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) in 2009.

Brockton is a city in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States; the population was 105,643 at the 2020 United States census. Along with Plymouth, it is one of the two county seats of Plymouth County. It is the sixth-largest city in Massachusetts and is sometimes referred to as the "City of Champions", due to the success of native boxers Rocky Marciano and Marvin Hagler, as well as its successful Brockton High School sports programs. Two villages within it are Montello and Campello, both of which have MBTA Commuter Rail Stations and post offices. Campello is the smallest neighborhood, but also the most populous. Brockton hosts a baseball team, the Brockton Rox of the Frontier League. It is the second-windiest city in the United States, with an average wind speed of 14.3 mph (23.0 km/h).

Weymouth is a city in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. It is one of 13 municipalities in the state to have city forms of government while retaining "town of" in their official names. It is named after Weymouth, Dorset, a coastal town in England, and is the second-oldest settlement in Massachusetts, second only to Plymouth. Weymouth is among one of the more affordable towns relative to the South Shore and offers a short commute into Boston, MBTA bus and rail service, and a town beach.

At the 2020 census, Weymouth had a total population of 57,437. It also had a crime rate of 12.42 per 1,000 residents.