Lancaster and Preston Junction Railway

The Lancaster and Preston Junction Railway was an English railway company authorized by Parliament in 1837 that opened a twenty-mile line between Lancaster and Preston in Lancashire in 1840. The company was never commercially successful, hampered by poor track, inadequate signalling and management disputes with the Lancaster Canal Company and the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway, and a serious rear-end collision at Bay Horse station in 1848 exposed its safety shortcomings. It was absorbed by the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway in 1849 and formally transferred to the London and North Western Railway in 1859; most of its original route remains in use today, electrified, as part of the West Coast Main Line.