Philpstoun station was opened by the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway on 21 February 1842.
[1] The area around Philpstoun, in common with others in West Lothian, was an extremely busy centre for shale mining and petroleum manufacturing for almost a century, and this was reflected in the railways around Philpstoun.
Immediately to the west, a facing junction, with crossovers and a looping facilities connected to a set of exchange sidings at Westfield, and these ran into Philpstoun No 1 shale mine.
Extensive sidings connected within the facility, and a short branch ran just west of the (still extant) shale bings, crossing the canal, and continuing past Easter Pardovan in a southerly direction to serve a shale pit at Ochiltree (just north west of Threemiletown).
Further west, a line branched from the down main via a trailing junction and ran adjacent to the mainline for some 500 yards before swinging south west, passing Champfleurie, before swinging south to serve oil works and a shale mine between Bridgend and Wester Ochiltree.