The station was opened by the South Wales Railway on 2 January 1854 as part of their route from Cardiff to and to two years later. A branch line to Milford Haven followed in 1863 and the Pembroke and Tenby Railway arrived from Tenby in 1866; their route was built as standard gauge, rather than the SWR's broad gauge, and so initially the P&T had to terminate at its own station next to the main line one, which by now was owned by the Great Western Railway. This separate P&T station had opened on 4 September 1866 and was closed in August 1869. A single line was converted to dual gauge in 1868 to allow P&T trains to reach. Full-through-running trains between the two routes was made possible in 1872 with the conversion of the main line to standard gauge. The network in the area was completed when the Cardigan branch was opened in stages between 1873 and 1886. From 1957 the station was rebuilt. On the up side it had a ticket hall, waiting room with refreshments, ladies waiting room, toilets, stationmaster's office, district inspector's office, parcels office, central heating, and a steel and aluminium platform canopy. On the down side it had a canopy, refreshment room and toilets.
Services
The station has an approximately hourly service to and from and eastbound and every two hours westbound to each of and. Certain eastbound services continue onwards to, and Manchester Piccadilly. The services between and Carmarthen also call. Summer Saturday Class 800 services between London Paddington and Pembroke Dock also serve Whitland.
Rail and sea corridor to Ireland
s to and from Fishguard Harbour serve the station. These connect with the Stena Line ferry to Rosslare Europort in Ireland with a daily morning and evening service in both directions. This route has been in existence since 1906.
Facilities
Despite being a once-major junction, the facilities at Whitland station are very poor. There are no toilets, nor a waiting room for passengers awaiting a service along the other line to use to take shelter from the wind. The main building located on the eastbound platform once contained a waiting room and ticket office, but is now closed and boarded up. Most of this platform is covered by a canopy, and west of the building rusting rails remain in one of the former bay platforms. Across the footbridge, waiting shelters are provided on the westbound platform. There is in fact a serviceable bay platform behind this, accessed from the Pembroke Dock branch, but this is seldom used for passenger trains as services from the branch do not normally terminate at Whitland. Train running information is provided by timetable posters, digital display screens and a customer help point on each side. Step-free access is available to both operational platforms, though the eastbound one is via a steep ramp.
