The station was designed by Grainger & Miller engineers.^[2] Originally it was the southern terminus of the Edinburgh and Northern Railway, with tracks and trainshed stretching away behind the imposing terminus building. The railway opened its main line north across Fife to Lindores & Cupar (branch line) in September 1847. These were extended by the following summer to Hilton Junction, near Perth, and Tayport. From Burntisland, a ferry service ran across the River Forth to Granton in the northern suburbs of Edinburgh, from where trains could be taken to various destinations across central and south-west Scotland.

The current station, which bypasses the site of the original station, dates from 1890 when the Forth Rail Bridge and associated connecting lines were opened to provide a direct route across the Forth estuary to Edinburgh Waverley.

On 14 April 1914, an express passenger train hauled by NBR H class locomotive 872 Auld Reekie was in collision with a freight train that was being shunted. The cause of the accident was an error by the signalman.^[3] Two people were killed.^[4]

Two trains per hour call at the station off peak (Mon-Sat), running southbound to Inverkeithing and Edinburgh and northbound to Kirkcaldy & Glenrothes with Thornton. One of the latter then continues along the western side of the Fife Circle line back to Edinburgh via Cowdenbeath. Evenings see an hourly service, with some through trains beyond Kirkcaldy to Dundee or Perth, whilst on Sundays the first northbound diagram of the day is a semi-fast service to Aberdeen, with an hourly service each way around the Circle thereafter.^[5]