The first railway was built in 1840 as a freight line to carry coal from the Derbyshire coalfields to Leicester. The station was at the bottom of what is now the Old Station car park. The goods yard stood on what is now Crossley Close named after the engineer, John Sydney Crossley, who built the Settle to Carlisle railway and widened the Barrow railway to 4 lines in 1868 to give a separate pair of lines for passenger services. The station closed in 1968.