The first station building was opened by the Bergisch-Märkische Railway Company on 9 October 1847 along with its Elberfeld–Dortmund line.

[8] In 1988, the station became part of the Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn, on line S 8 from Hagen via Wuppertal to Mönchengladbach.

This uses a flying junction built by the Deutsche Bundesbahn in the 1980s that takes the S-Bahn tracks from Wuppertal to Schwelm under the parallel mainline tracks running towards Hagen directly east of Schwelm station, connecting via a short section of the Witten–Wengern Ost/Schwelm line (the rest of which is closed) to the partially closed Düsseldorf-Derendorf–Dortmund Süd railway towards Gevelsberg-West.

The Regional-Express services on lines RE 4 (Wupper-Express), RE 7 (Rhein-Münsterland-Express) and RE 13 (Maas-Wupper-Express) use tracks 3 and 4, which are also used by the non-stopping long-distance trains.

The station is served by Regional-Express services RE 4, RE 7 and RE 13, Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn line S 8 between Mönchengladbach and Hagen and line S 9 between Recklinghausen and Hagen, all every 60 minutes.