From the passenger station, with two side platforms on the embankment, at Haverhill (MP 278.07/32.93), end of MBTA service, the line heads northwest, Double Track, current-of-traffic (Rule 251), Automatic Block Signals, speed limit 40 mph (before the passenger speed limit upgrade), past two bridges over streets, signals at CPF-Ditch, an MBTA yard on the west side, crossovers? at Hall (MP 277.62/33.38), a road bridge overhead, a wooded area, a grade crossing, a spur trailing in from the east, the hand-operated crossover at Rosemont (MP 275.60/35.49), a box labeled "B36" on the east side, the boundary between Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and Intermediate Signals at MP 36.x, turning nort-northeast, past a road bridge overhead, and Plaistow, just east of due north past a road bridge overhead, crossovers at Atkinson (MP 274.55), a grade crossing, and the end of double track in favor of single track, CTC, at CPF-273 (MP 272.89).
There is a road bridge overhead, woods and marshland, a grade crossing, Newton Junction (MP 270.25), where an erstwhile branch to Merrimac once headed east, a road to the east, a spur trailing in from the east, three grade crossings, a road bridge overhead, and Russ Crossing.
The line turns north-northeast, past Powow River, MP 265, a road bridge overhead, a grade crossing, the west side siding at East Kingston (MP 265.48), a detector at MP 262.4, a grade crossing, and a bridge over a stream, just east of due north again, past a grade crossing, a street to the east, the passenger station, with platform and shelter to the east, at Exeter (MP 260.60), an old stone depot to the east, a grade crossing, a road bridge voerhead, a grade crossing, signals at CPF-258 (MP 257.88), a road bridge overhead, a road alongside to the east, MP 257, a grade crossing, a road alongside to the east, an angled road bridge overhead, and the east side siding at Newfields (MP 256.60), where it turns north-northeast again, with two tracks to the east for a short stretch, and the junction at Rockingham (CPF-256, MP 255.82), at the north end of the siding, where an erstwhile line from Concord once trailed in from the west, and its continuation still does head east-northeast to Portsmouth and the Kittery Navy Yard.