The station was opened with the inauguration of the line in 1840, on the west of the Horbury Bridge Road, to the south-west of the town.

A connecting curve to the Barnsley line from the Horbury and Ossett side was added in 1902, completing the triangle; but it attracted little traffic after 1939, and passenger services from the west were suspended in 1962.

The chord continued to be used by some freight traffic, and occasionally used for parking the Royal Train, but was eventually severed in 1991.

The original Horbury Junction station closed in 1929; although for a time a third station was open, on the main line a little closer to the town, to service the large railway wagon works of Charles Roberts and Co. which grew up in the land between the two lines.

British Railways developed a large marshalling yard in the 1960s at Healey Mills immediately to the west of the original station.