It was built to serve the mining village of Edlington and the Doncaster suburb of Balby in South Yorkshire, England.

The station, like others on the Dearne Valley, consisted of a bed of sleepers set at track level with an old L&Y coach body lit by a couple of gas lamps for a waiting shelter.

The large station sign was removed in the late 1920s and replaced by a simple "Edlington".

[1] The passenger service was originally operated by a Hughes-designed 'railmotor' which was fitted with vacuum-operated retractable steps, thus saving on platform building.

At first, trains were operated on behalf of the DVR by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway; when that company amalgamated with the London and North Western Railway on 1 January 1922, the combined organisation (also known as the London and North Western Railway) absorbed the DVR on the same day.