The station was opened by the Bristol and South Wales Union Railway in 1863 with a single platform, 0.5 miles (0.8 km) west of the current location, but was resited in 1885 when the line was widened to double track.

The station once had large buildings and a goods yard, but these were demolished in the late 20th century, with small brick shelters built in their place.

[1][2][3][4] The station is on the South Wales Main Line between Bristol Parkway and Newport (South Wales), and just off the Cross Country Route north of Filton Abbey Wood and the east end of the Henbury Loop Line.

[6][note 1] The station is just north of Patchway Junctions 1 and 2, where the lines from Bristol Parkway, Filton Abbey Wood and Henbury converge.

[7][8] Platform 1, on the east side of the station and adjacent to the Up Tunnel track, is for trains towards Filton Abbey Wood and Bristol Parkway.

[7] From 2002 to 2014, annual passenger numbers at Patchway more than quintupled, from 16,898 to 92,540, and the station was noted in 2013 as having a high growth trend.

On Saturdays, there is a similar level of service throughout most of the day, with one train per hour in each direction between Cardiff and Taunton.

The line, engineered by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was built as single track 7 ft 1⁄4 in (2,140 mm) broad gauge.

However, the gradient between Pilning and Patchway, 1 in 68, was considered undesirably steep for trains heading up the hill towards Bristol, particularly for heavy coal trains, and so a three-mile deviation was built with a 1 in 100 gradient between Pilning and a point south of Patchway.

[25] The deviation left the two tracks at Patchway at significantly different levels, and so made the original site impractical for a station.

The station buildings were of a standard 1880s GWR design, with tall chimneys and fretted wooden canopies.

[8][27] The goods yard included two sidings: a short, south-facing one adjacent to a loading dock; and a longer north-facing one.

However, the final 15 miles (24 km) to Bristol were relatively slow and congested, so a new route was built further north; the GWR's Badminton Line, now part of the South Wales Main Line, ran from Wootton Bassett Junction to a junction just south of Patchway.

[31] As part of the work, the station signal box was closed, replaced by a larger one closer to the junction on 19 October 1902.

[36] British Rail was split into business-led sectors in the 1980s; at which time, operations at Patchway passed to Regional Railways.

[37] When the railway was privatised in 1997, local services were franchised to Wales & West, which was succeeded by Wessex Trains in 2001.

[40][41][42][43] From December 2006, Virgin CrossCountry began operating a single daily service from Newcastle to Cardiff Central, via Bristol Temple Meads and Patchway.

[49] A successful bid was made to the Department for Transport's Access for All scheme, which provided for improved signage, lighting and seats.

[50] A station garden was created in partnership with nearby Patchway Community College and two decorative mosaics were installed.

[58][59] The group Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways supports the electrification continuing to Weston, as does MP for Weston-super-Mare John Penrose.