The ELR encountered problems almost from the outset over the use of the NUR route between Farington and Preston, with congestion and the high tolls charged by the latter company for access to its metals causing considerable friction between the two.

The following year saw the arrival from the west of the Liverpool, Ormskirk and Preston Railway, which had received parliamentary assent in 1846 but had been bought out by the ELR before construction work had started upon it.

This route gave the ELR direct access for its traffic to the docks in Liverpool and joined the B&PR at Lostock Hall by means of a junction facing towards Blackburn.

By 1877 traffic demands had reached the point that the 2-road depot adjacent to the junction was deemed inadequate by the L&Y and work on a new, much larger facility began.

This was built on a site between the LO&P and B&P lines immediately south of the passenger station and was opened in 1881, with the old depot then becoming a carriage and wagon repair shop.

The new shed would become the L&Y's main loco servicing facility for the entire Preston area (and beyond) and in due course the volume of traffic utilising it and the routes it served became so great that additional trackwork improvements had to be made to alleviate matters.

Public opposition to the plans soon led to the southern portion as far as Ormskirk being safeguarded, but it was not until 1969 that the rest of the line was reprieved by the Labour government of Harold Wilson.

Services over the ex-ELR Preston extension from the Bamber Bridge direction finally ended in the autumn of 1972, when the line was closed (as a result of the Preston area re-signalling scheme) along with the remaining manual signal boxes in the area[6] (though a short section remained in use for freight to Lostock Hall gas works until 1977).