Notes: Opened as Bradshaw Leach the station was situated on the Kenyon Junction to Bolton line which had opened in stages from 1828 to 1831 as the 'Bolton and Leigh Railway'. The first section of the line from Bolton to Chequerbent opened on 28.8.1828. The line had been engineered by George Stephenson and it was one of his locomotives, the Lancashire Witch, that made the inaugural run. The line had reached Leigh by March 1830 but it was not until 2.6.1831 when the line had reached Kenyon Junction on the famous Liverpool and Manchester Railway that passenger services began. The first passenger run was an excursion from Bolton to Newton for a horse racing event.

By the end of July 1831 two passenger services per day were operating between Bolton Great Moor street and Liverpool. As the decades progressed services increased. On the 1.9.1864 a new line opened from a point just to the north of the station to Tyldersley via Leigh. This provided the station with additional passenger business and by this time it was a two platform station with a brick built building on the Kenyon Junction Platform and a simple waiting shelter on the Bolton/Tyldersley Platform.

The station was renamed as Pennington on 1.2.1877. In 1885 a further line opened from the same point to the north of the station but this time to Platt Bridge near Wigan. This created a 3-way junction immediately north of the station.

By the 1930s over 20 trains per day operated from Bolton Great Moor Street to points to the west of Kenyon Junction. As many services operated from points to the west of Kenyon Junction along the line to Tyldersley and beyond.

By the 1950s traffic on the Great Moor Street line had declined to six trains each way. On the 27.3.1954 regular passenger trains on this line ceased to operate and Pennington Station closed. Passenger trains continued to pass through the station site going east at the junction to follow the line through Leigh to Tyldersley. Most services operated on a Liverpool to Manchester and beyond service pattern using this line rather than the main Liverpool to Manchester line via Glazebury. The line through Leigh became known as the Leigh Loop as by this time it was effectively just that. A line that looped from Kenyon Junction to Eccles via Pennington, Leigh and Tyldersley.

Passenger services on the Leigh Loop ceased in 1969 and the line closed.

The course of the line passed under St. Helens Road, but today this has been removed and the new A579 forms a crossroads with St. Helens Road. Nothing remains of the station.

To see the other stations on the Bolton Great Moor Street - Kenyon Junction line click on the station name: Kenyon Junction, West Leigh, Atherleigh, Atherton Bag Lane, Chequerbent 1st, Chequerbent 2nd, Daubhill 1st, Rumworth & Daubhill & Bolton Great Moor Street