For most of its life the station was on a through route for passenger services between Manchester and Bacup via Bury. After being listed for closure under the Beeching Axe passenger and goods services to Bacup were withdrawn on 3 December 1966 (up to the last day services were regular at least every half an hour, every fifteen minutes at peak times and on Saturdays) and passenger services to Bury on 3 June 1972. Freight services to the British Fuel Company's coal concentration depot continued until 4 December 1980 when British Rail abruptly discontinued them, stating that the 14,000 tonnes of coal handled was far less than when the depot had been opened and the decline was mainly due to householders switching to other types of fuel. Closure came as a surprise to local councils which had been planning to transform Fernhill depot, alongside the Bury line, into a rail-served waste disposal facility capable of dealing with 600 tonnes per day by 1984. The coal depot at Rawtenstall would remain open to be served by road from rail-linked depots at Blackburn, Burnley and Chadderton.
