When the new line opened in 1849 there were only three stations between Sheffield and Worksop. These were at Darnall, Kiveton Park and Shireoaks. Opened on the day trains began running, Kiveton Park Station was built by James Drabble and Company from Carlton. It is interesting to note that it had originally intended to call the station ‘Dog Kennels’.

Since the arrival of the Chesterfield Canal in 1777 there had been lime kilns in the vicinity and soon after the railway became operational ore were constructed. It is worth a mention at this juncture that the Chesterfield Canal Company was swallowed up in the tide of railway-mania and duly became part of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway on July 9th 1847, a full two years before the railway ran its first trains through Kiveton. On one side of the canal at this time was Mr. Grizzell’s wharf farm from where stone was shipped to London for construction of the new Houses of Parliament, and on the other was that of Messrs. W. Wright and Company who worked Anston Quarries.

Along with the continuing increase in lime output a proposal was put before the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire board by one of its members, Samuel Watkins, that they provide a weighing machine for lime at Kiveton Park. The date of the meeting was April 3rd 1857 and the cost was an estimated £160. Thirteen years later, on October 2nd 1870, a Mr. Coggan asked the company to provide a siding two miles east of Kiveton Park to a stone quarry at which he intended erecting some lime kilns. It was estimated that these would generate traffic of between £1,000 and £1,500 per annum. The board sanctioned the siding on condition that Mr. Coggan paid the whole cost of the block telegraph and the wages of the Watchman.

On January 29th 1872 the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire board were contacted by agents of the Duke of Leeds for a siding at Kiveton Park, to which the company agreed subject to negotiation. In 1873, the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire improved facilities at Kiveton Park and the board undertook to ask the Duke of Leeds to purchase ten acres of land for sidings and station enlargement. On July 18th of the same year it was proposed that the level crossing at the eastern end of the Station be substituted by a bridge at a cost of £1,100. By now though, increased traffic meant that the existing station was becoming increasingly inadequate and it was recommended that a new station be built on a site a few yards west of the present structure. Tenders for the new station were not received under November and on the 14th of that month, the contract was awarded to Foxton and Company for £1,717.

At the board meeting of July 18th 1873, a decision was made to increase siding capacity at Kiveton Park by laying new sidings near to Kiveton Park Colliery. These were brought into use shortly after the new station was completed and at a cost of £4,400. In 1877, the upgrading of facilities took a further step forward with the installation of gas lighting at Kiveton Park Station.