trains in each direction, with one express running from Piermont to Jersey City in 70 minutes. Sometime in the 1860s the Northern began running service westward from Sparkill on the Erie's Piermont Branch as far as Monsey, New York. The southern terminal was moved to the Erie's Jersey City Terminal late in 1868, about six months before the Northern Railroad's formal lease to the Erie. At that time the company had six locomotives, 21 passenger and baggage cars, and 30 freight cars. Not long after, a nominally separate company, the Nyack and Northern Railroad, built from Nyack south to meet the Northern at Sparkill, and from its opening in May 1870 Nyack became the northern terminal for most Northern Railroad trains. The Northern track was changed to standard gauge along with the rest of the Erie system in 1878. For five miles in Hudson County, Croxton to Granton, the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway ran parallel to the Northern Railroad. Joint stations were constructed between the railroads with platforms on each side. By the time the Susquehanna was leased by the Erie in 1898, the companies operated the parallel section as one multi-track railroad, with the Northern Railroad's tracks used mostly for northbound trains. Although the Erie lease ended in 1940, the track-sharing continued to the late 1950s. The Northern Railroad was mainly a commuter and local line, with significant freight business only near its southern end. Business dropped off in the 1930s, and in 1942 the company's property was sold off to its long-term lessor, the Erie. From that time it was the Northern Branch. Erie and Erie Lackawanna By 1954, the Northern Branch had only three rush hour passenger trains each way. Between 1956 and 1958, the allied Erie and Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad (DL&W) consolidated their diminishing passenger services at the Lackawanna's Hoboken Terminal. During transition Erie trains continued to use the Erie Pavonia Terminal for about an hour in each rush hour, to distribute the heaviest crowds. A Northern Branch train was the very last to leave Pavonia Erie Terminal in 1958. Two years later, the Pavonia Terminal was razed in 1961. The two companies merged in 1960 to form the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad. The Northern Branch ran from Hoboken for only eight years. Operation was complicated by the lack of a direct connection. Trains leaving Hoboken had to run out over the new connection