Bathurst Station opened on 4 April 1876 by Governor of NSW, Hercules Robinson, when the Great Western Railway was extended from Kelso. Bathurst then received a sustainable boost in activity and development from the arrival of the railway which allowed the town to communicate and trade quickly and cheaply with Sydney.

The workshops, established during the 1880s, started a large railway workers’ community and a rail institute to educate the hundreds of workers at Bathurst.

In 1903, Ben Chifley joined the NSW Government Railways as a shop boy and in March 1912 was promoted to become a driver, becoming the youngest First Class locomotive driver. He attended night school and extension classes at the institute. The union meetings Chifley attended at the Institute helped to shape his trade union and Labour politics.

One of the locomotives driven by Chifley, 5112, is preserved on a plinth at the station.

The main station building is an outstanding example of a first-class station building. The single storey rendered brick building is Victorian Tudor in style. The station master’s residence (1880) is a grand two storey Gothic Revival style brick residence and is one of the best surviving station master’s residences in the state.

Bathurst is served by NSW TrainLink’s, Bathurst Bullet to and from Sydney, daily Central West XPT service, and the weekly Outback Explorer to Broken Hill.