It is on the Tattenham Corner line 16 miles 46 chains (26.7 km) from Charing Cross and opened on 1 January 1904.

Still, nowadays the usual off-peak service is two trains per hour in each direction between London Bridge and Tattenham Corner.

Services to London Victoria were withdrawn in 2021 due to the pandemic [5] The Coulsdon relief road, opened on 18 December 2006 as part of the A23, passes underneath the station, requiring some rearrangement and refurbishment of the platform access routes.

Network Rail constructed a new modular station building on the downside of the line and a standard-pattern accessible footbridge, which opened in 2010.

As part of the retender of Southern's franchise in 2009, the Department for Transport requested that, in response to lobbying by Croydon Council, the new company look into a better name for the station, as "Smitham" is no longer used as the name of the local area.