to operate north of Dodds.) Avondale Branch operations were discontinued in August 1889, due to competition from the cheaper Mt. Auburn Cable Railway. Under Hafer's leadership, new passenger and freight depots opened on the north side of Court Street in December 1885. In preparation for conversion to standard gauge, the CL&N relaid rail and replaced bridges, including a straight trestle in the Deer Creek Valley, completed in January 1889, in place of a curving old narrow gauge structure. The first standard gauge rails were laid by August 1889 as part of a dual gauge setup south of Idlewild, when the Ohio and North Western Railroad (O&NW, successor to the C&E), which had converted its line to standard gauge, moved its trains from the Little Miami Railroad (Pennsylvania Railroad system) back to the CL&N. Several months later, a third rail was laid north to East Norwood, allowing the O&NW to connect with the Baltimore and Ohio Southwestern Railroad (successor to the M&C). After undertaking more improvements to the alignment, the company completed the conversion of the main line to Lebanon to standard gauge on September 16, 1894, although, until it acquired a full set of standard gauge equipment, much of the commuter service to Blue Ash continued to use the narrow gauge tracks. Throughout the CL&N's independence, various larger companies were looking to acquire it, mainly for the valuable Court Street terminal property. The most persistent rumor was that the Cincinnati, Jackson and Mackinaw Railroad (CJ&M, later a NYC line) would buy the CL&N as an entrance to Cincinnati. The CJ&M had built south from Michigan to Carlisle, Ohio in 1887, and initially acquired trackage rights over the CH&D to reach Cincinnati. Negotiations between the CL&N and CJ&M convinced the CH&D that the latter was capable of becoming a strong competitor, despite its poor financial state, and the CH&D attempted to acquire the CJ&M in 1892. But the CL&N stopped the consolidation based on Ohio's laws prohibiting such anti-competitive practices, and the CJ&M continued to look at the CL&N as a possible part of its line. After the CL&N's conversion to standard gauge was completed in 1894, the CJ&M secured trackage rights over the CL&N into Court Street, beginning service on January 27, 1896 via an extension from Carlisle to Franklin, the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway (Big Four, later a NYC line) to Middletown, and the recently opened