(1956) from the DL&W Boonton Branch to the Erie Main Line, pass a switch which would be thrown, back up about two miles on the former route toward the Erie terminal to where the Northern Branch joined the Erie Main, wait for another switch, and then proceed forward again into the Northern Branch. The move added 15 to 20 minutes to running time. Because commuter services cost more to run than they earned in fares, the Erie-Lackawanna ended passenger service on several branches in 1966. On the Northern Branch, the entire railroad north of Sparkill was abandoned in January and passenger service on the rest of the branch was eliminated in October. The last timetable, April 24, 1966, shows three rush hour trains each way taking 60 minutes to run from Hoboken to Sparkill, only 10 minutes longer than 1954 schedules because of some station closings. Although freight service on the line continued, service into New York state stopped in the late 1970s after the Continental Can Company in Piermont closed. Conrail & CSX By the consolidation of Erie Lackawanna and Penn Central (among others) into Conrail in 1976, both the West Shore Railroad and the Northern Branch fell under the control of Conrail. As trains accessing the Northern Branch in Jersey City had to go to Journal Square and reverse direction, and the connection included a grade crossing of Newark Avenue, freight trains typically used the New Jersey Junction Railroad and West Shore Railroad, renamed as Conrail's River Line, to go through northern New Jersey. Around 1994, a short elevated track, known as the Marion Running Track, was built to connect the Passaic and Harsimus Line towards Kearny with the Northern Branch. This provided the Northern Branch with a direct connection to other lines heading west and south at Marion Junction. After the breakup of Conrail in 1999, the Northern Branch was divided. Conrail Shared Assets Operations retained the tracks from Marion Junction to the CSX yard in North Bergen, known as the Northern Running Track. CSX was given the remaining section north to Northvale, in addition to the West Shore Railroad running through the yard, known as the Bergen Subdivision of the River Line. With New Jersey Transit's 2000 creation of the Hudson–Bergen Light Rail on the River Line east of the CSX North Bergen Yard, freight trains needed an alternate route to get to the CSX Albany