There was a raising of the platform heights 'fully a foot the whole length' in 1886, the local newspaper reporting 'a goodly number of men being engaged on the work'.

After the takeover by the LMSR in 1923, plans were drawn up for improved general waiting rooms (GWRs) on both platforms, complete with internal stove heating.

This originally led into a large waiting area and booking hall, complete with benches around the sides of the room and use of the second smaller internal wall clock face to aid timekeeping.

The GWR on the Manchester platform can be seen in late 1960s photos but must have been removed by around 1970 and by the 1980s a new waiting room extension in stone was added on to the end of the 1859 station building, in place of the gentlemen's lean-to toilets.

This GWR, if built, had become a small closed brick waiting shed as seen on a mid-1960s photo and by the 1970s this appeared to be replaced with the very basic open-fronted brick shed (now boarded up) that exists today, alongside which is now its replacement, an open bus shelter type stand with metal swivel seating – all of which represents a substantial reduction in facilities to what had been provided in LYR and LMSR days.

The former franchise operator Arriva Rail North announced a much enhanced all-day half-hourly service on weekdays and Saturdays in both directions from December 2017, rather than merely at morning and evening peak periods as before.

[citation needed] The station is staffed on a part-time basis (mornings and early afternoons only, Monday to Saturday), with a ticket office and waiting room on the southbound platform.

[citation needed] The 1848 original low-level platform, the 1859 station building, and the 1875 signal box were all Grade II listed in early 2015.

[1] The Grade II-listed signal box at the station is a Smith and Yardley type 1 brick box opened in December 1875, almost certainly timed to service the new connections to short sidings that were opened that winter, these works being checked and then approved with minor modifications by the Board of Trade inspector Colonel Hutchinson in documentation dated February 1876.

[11] One interesting requirement was that the wicket gates had to be locked by levers in the signal cabin and this basic protection can now be dated with certainty to that time.

[citation needed] Jackson, Allen (2015),Contemporary Perspective on LMS Railway Signalling Vol 1: Semaphore Swansong, Volume 1, Crowood Press Ltd, ISBN 978 1 78500 026 3