Within three years however, the heavily congested section of the L&M through the station was bypassed for north–south traffic with the opening of a cut-off line from Winwick Junction to Golborne, though local stopping trains between Warrington Bank Quay and Wigan continued to call thereafter.

The station was also well served by trains between Manchester Exchange and Liverpool Lime Street (many of which were routed via Leigh) and also to Chester General via Warrington and the Birkenhead Joint Railway.

[6] The station avoided the Beeching Axe in the 1960s, though the Warrington to Wigan local trains along the WCML ended in 1969 along with services via Leigh.

The Motorail terminal closed in the early 1980s as British Rail cut back the number of routes on offer across the network, though the sidings into it were not finally removed until August 2013.

This finally changed over forty years later when the Liverpool to Manchester line via Chat Moss was electrified by Network Rail as part of the North West Electrification Programme.

Transport for Wales also serves the station once per hour each way (with peak extras) on its Manchester Airport/Manchester Piccadilly to Chester and Llandudno route, though a few trains run to and from Holyhead (to connect with the ferry to Ireland).