Herne station was opened in the inner city of Herne in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia in 1847 together with the Cologne-Minden trunk line. It was located between the village of Herne, which had about 1,000 inhabitants, and the moated castle of and was south of the current station on Von-der-Heydt-Strasse. It soon had a connection to the more southerly city of Bochum, which until 14 years later did not have its own station. For this reason the station was called Herne-Bochum until 1855.