The station is managed by East Midlands Railway and is located 14+1⁄4 miles (23 km) northwest of Lincoln Central on the A156 Lea Road in the south of the town.

It opened in 1867 on a single line of the Great Northern Railway, who ran four trains a day from Gainsborough to Lincoln.

On 1 March 1871 a line was opened from north of the station to the bank of the River Trent serving Ashcroft Saw Mill and an iron works.

[2][3] In 1879 the GNR and the Great Eastern Railway (GER) formed a committee to build a line linking the coal fields of south Yorkshire to London.

[5] In the Second World War the joint line saw significant freight traffic and passenger services were reduced as a result.

GNR goods services ran from Doncaster to/from a variety of destinations including Lincoln, Louth, Peterborough and Grantham.

On weekdays and Saturdays, the station is generally served by an hourly Northern Trains service between Lincoln and Leeds via Retford and Sheffield.

In April 2019, the DfT announced that Abellio had won its bid for the East Midlands franchise, after Stagecoach was disqualified from the process due to not meeting pension obligations.