nationalisation in January 1948. By the 1960s, the loco shed was still a busy location and would remain so right up until the end of steam on the UK rail network in August 1968. The station & LO&PR line by contrast were amongst those planned for closure in the 1963 Beeching Report, the route being considered by Beeching as a duplicate to that via Wigan and St Helens. 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. Lostock Hall station though was not so fortunate, losing its passenger services on 6 October 1969 when the last few through trains between Blackburn & Liverpool were withdrawn and the other services on the Ormskirk line routed via Farington Curve Junction and the WCML. The connections either side of Lostock Hall toward Todd Lane Jcn (Preston ELR) & Moss Lane Jcn (Ormskirk) were closed at the same time and subsequently dismantled, whilst the station itself was also demolished at some point in the early 1970s. 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 (though a short section remained in use for freight to Lostock Hall gas works until 1977). East Lancashire line trains were thereafter routed via the original 1846/49 lines as far as Lostock Hall, then over the 1908 connection to reach the WCML. The loco depot eventually lost its role as a maintenance facility in 1971, thereafter taking over the role of its predecessor further east as the area carriage & wagon repair shops. It closed altogether in 1988 and was finally demolished in January 1990. The adjacent Lostock Hall Jcn to Farington Jcn line (which has not had a timetabled passenger service since 1850) is still open and sees use by a variety of freight services heading to and from the S&C route and occasional diverted passenger trains & railtours. Part of the old Preston extension route is now a footpath & cycle way, whilst another portion has been utilised for road improvements. The current station By the early 1980s, local pressure for a station to serve