The station is located on the Harrogate Line, 15 miles (24 km) north of Leeds, and is managed by Northern Trains which operates all passenger services.

The station was built by contractors, James Bray, who had been appointed by the Leeds & Thirsk Railway on 26 April 1846 to build the section between Weeton and Starbeck.

Goods traffic was withdrawn from Pannal in 1954, but the sidings remained until the closure of the signalbox and removal of the signals in 1969, when they were all lifted.

In 2011, an automated ticket machine accepting only debit and credit cards was installed in the waiting shelter on the up (Leeds) platform.

[3] When first converted as Platform One, a Pullman kitchen second class parlour carriage, built in 1960 as number 332, formerly on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, was incorporated into the public house as a dining room.

This carriage was renamed Mae, after the mother of the first landlord Paul Eckart, but was removed and scrapped by Booths of Rotherham when the public house underwent the second renovation, due to it containing extensive blue asbestos insulation.

The ramp from the former cattle dock on the up side can still be seen, as a strip of inclined unused land between the station and the former Dunlopillo factory, which was closed in 2008.

During Monday to Saturday daytimes, and also on Sundays from mid-morning, there is generally a half-hourly service in both directions between Leeds, Harrogate, Knaresborough and York.