Construction of the HD&R was first authorised by an Act of Parliament obtained on 1 June 1832 which granted the railway company powers to construct a 14-mile railway from Moorsley (near Houghton-le-Spring) to Hartlepool as well as a number of short branches to serve collieries surrounding the line and a further Act of 16 June 1834 authorised an additional branch to Gilesgate in the City of Durham.

[1] Nonetheless, the curtailed line opened to mineral traffic (as far as Haswell) on 23 November 1835[1] and, when passenger trains were introduced on 1 May 1839, a station, originally named Crimdon, was provided[3] to serve Hart village.

[9][4] From 1920, a then popular holiday park was developed at the nearby settlement of Crimdon and Hart station became the primary railhead through which day trippers from the surrounding mining communities arrived at the resort.

[2] By this time, passenger and goods traffic across the country was in decline and this was the case for Hart station and the routes from West Hartlepool to Sunderland and Ferryhill through it.

Once the remaining tracks were lifted on the Haswell line, work commenced on converting the disused section into the Hart to Haswell Walkway[1] which reaches its southern terminus at the station site and which was later extended to Ryhope after the closure of the remaining northern section of the line between Hawthorn Colliery and Ryhope Junction in 1991.