Notes: The building of a new line by the St. Helens Railway from St. Helens to Rainford which necessitated the building of a new station. This was because the existing station (St. Helens 2nd) was a terminus situated on a spur from the original 1832 line. The spur connected to the main line west to south so trains using the new Rainford branch would have had to reverse in or out of the existing station. So to avoid this a new station St. Helens (3rd) was constructed on what would became the through line.

It seems that this station had a temporary air about it and it was not particularly popular with the residents of the town who felt that they deserved something better. In the late 1860's the LNWR, who had by then taken control of the St. Helens Railway, began construction of a new line from St. Helens to Huyton. This new line gave more direct access to Liverpool and to serve it a new Station, was built. The new station which is still open today, although much rebuilt in the 1960s, opened on 17.7.1871 several months before the Huyton line and on the same day St. Helens 3rd Station closed.

Interestingly the 4th station started life as St. Helens, was renamed St. Helens Shaw Street on 1.3.1949 and renamed once again in the 1980's to St. Helens Central.

See also St. Helens (1st Station) & St. Helens (2nd Station)