The station is managed by ScotRail and is on the Fife Circle Line, 31+1⁄4 miles (50.3 km) north of Edinburgh Waverley.

The station is situated on the Dunfermline branch of the Edinburgh and Northern Railway, just west of its divergence from the E&NR main line via a triangular junction.

[2] It is a completely new structure, having been built by British Rail with the support of Fife Regional Council to serve the two communities that it is named after.

The successful inauguration of the Fife Circle Line service in 1989 had seen the Cardenden to Thornton Jn section reopened to passengers and this provided the catalyst for the construction of the station.

It was completed in the spring of 1992 and it was opened to traffic on 11 May that year, at the summer timetable change.