Hudson Connecting Railway

The New Jersey Midland Railway was a 19th-century predecessor to the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway (NYS&W) that operated in Northern New Jersey and Orange County, New York.

The Hoboken, Ridgefield and Paterson Railroad was chartered in 1866 to connect Paterson with the ports along the Hudson River waterfront.

The New Jersey Midland Railway (NJM) was formed in 1870 as a consolidation of several smaller railroads. The original plan was to cut through the Hudson Palisades near Englewood and run south along the Hudson River to Weehawken, but the company lacked the money to do so, and instead made arrangements to run through the Pennsylvania Railroad's cut from Marion Junction through Bergen Hill in Jersey City to their Exchange Place Terminal.

One of the consolidated companies, the New Jersey Western Railroad had built about ten miles of trackage from Hawthorne/Hawthorne (NYS&W station) to Bloomingdale from 1868 to 1870, including the Wortendyke (NYS&W station) before it was consolidated into the NJ Midland.

In 1871 built west from Two Bridges/Beaver Lake through Sussex County, including construction of the Backwards Tunnel, to the New York state line at Hanford, New Jersey, just south of Unionville, New York. The Ogden Mine Railroad was made obsolete. This was later known as the Hanford Branch.