The original Bukit Timah Railway Station was a wooden construction at Pei Wah Avenue on the 1903 line from Woodlands to Singapore (River Valley Road) via Newton.

Passenger traffic continued from the new Bukit Timah station until 1965 when Singapore was expelled from Malaysia, after which customs and immigration facilities were set up at Tanjong Pagar.

Workers of the railways constituted of mainly Tamils and Malays, and were given much work privileges which include free medical facilities for themselves and their families.

The locomotive and two passenger coaches of a KTM train bound for Kuala Lumpur derailed near the Bukit Timah station just after 8am on 9 November 2010.

The rest of the trackbed has been turfed over and is now open to the public as a linear park, as part of Singapore's Nature Society and URA's "Rail Corridor" project.

On 1 July 2022, after two years of restoration work, the Bukit Timah railway station officially re-opened to the public once again, as part of the new 4.3-hectare community space around the mid-point of the Rail Corridor.