The Lancaster and Preston Junction Railway opened its twenty-mile line in 1840 in Lancashire, England. The company was not commercially successful. When the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway opened in 1846, the L&PJR became part of a busy trunk railway. It had never had the money to provide substantial track equipment or proper signalling arrangements. Most of the line is in use today as part of the West Coast Main Line railway and has been electrified. None of the L&PJR stations are still in use.
A chaotic situation developed in which the company did not have a legal board of directors and the Carlisle company ran unauthorised trains over the line. The Lancaster Canal Company had a yearly lease of the line and was unwilling to spend money on improvements without security of tenure. No proper system of safe operation was imposed and in 1848 a rear-end collision took place at Bay Horse station exposing the shortcomings. The situation was regularised at the end of 1848 when the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway took control. By then the London and North Western Railway was exercising oversight of the L&CR, and formal transfer to the LNWR took place in 1859.