At the establishment of the Anhalt line, Großbeeren was only a stop for steam locomotives[4] so that they could be resupplied with water.

In the early years the nearby Ludwigsfelde station, which was opened at the same time as Großbeeren, was served during the day by just one freight train that also carried passengers; it could be used to travel to Berlin in the morning and to return in the afternoon.

[4] For the extension of the railway station in 1867–68, part of the Großbeeren estate had to be expropriated because its owner, von Briesen, had refused to sell the land.

The marshalling yard was opened on a much reduced scale on 15 August 1941 as Hilfsrangierbahnhof (auxiliary marshalling yard) Großbeeren; the Outer Freight Ring was also provisional opened on 16 December 1940 with a single track as the Vorläufiger Güteraußenring (interim outer freight ring).

Other projects in the area of Großbeeren were a locomotive depot (Bahnbetriebswerk), a local freight yard and a line to the west as an extension of the Outer Freight Ring via Seehof and Stahnsdorf to Potsdam with access to Großbeeren marshalling yard.

The infrastructure of the marshalling yard was extended to the east of the Anhalt Railway for five kilometres as far as Teltow station.

New tracks were opened in 1943 to the west of the station for the Anhalt Suburban Line running on an embankment, which were provided with temporary platforms.

The Anhalt Railway was divided by the establishment of a border between West Berlin and East Germany.

The section of the line that was still open to Teltow and passed through Großbeeren station was electrified on 30 July 1982.

The Großbeeren intermodal freight depot (Güterverkehrszentrum, GVZ) has been built on parts of the site of the former rail yard since 1994; its transfer facility went into operation in September 1998.

In the same year passenger services between Ludwigsfelde and Teltow via Großbeeren were discontinued because of construction work to restore the connection to Berlin.

In the first years of operation, Großbeeren was served each day in both directions by one freight train that had some passenger accommodation.

[10] In 1905, nine or ten passenger trains, depending on direction, stopped in the station, mostly running to Dresden, Leipzig and Halle.

[12] For a short time in the 1940s there was a suburban platform on the west side of the station built on an embankment.

There is also a branch from Großbeeren Süd (south) junction to the northeast to the intermodal freight depot (GVZ), which passes to the east of the station.

The Großbeeren intermodal freight centre (Güterverkehrszentrum, GVZ), which is of considerable importance for supplying Berlin, was built in 1998 and enlarged in 2005.

Due to its high traffic, a 40-acre extension to the centre was completed in the "Am Lilograben" area to the west of the Anhalt Railway in 2014.