The railway's contractor, J.W. Willans was appointed as its Chief Engineer. He specialised in building and running electric railways, and in 1902, newer and more powerful electric motors were fitted to the trains in order to reduce service times in order to keep up with the competition from trams. In the early 20th century, the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway L&YR was electrifying its routes out of . A connection was built from the L&YR station to a new station beside Seaforth Sands.