The first station in Geilenkirchen was opened in 1852 with the opening of the Herzogenrath - Rheydt section. In 1900 the second station, which belonged to the Geilenkirchen district railway, was opened. Because of its central location, this became the largest on the circular railway. In the district station there was a roundhouse and workshops. Because of the meter gauge system of the Kreisbahn, it was not possible to shunt freight cars directly onto the tracks of the state railway. These had to be handled on special loading tracks. In 1938, the Rollbock system made it possible to move the standard-gauge wagons on the meter-gauge tracks of the Geilenkirchen district railway. The station complex thus consisted of two entrance buildings, a warehouse for goods and baggage handling, a loading ramp and a siding for loading wagons with vehicles (Geilenkirchen is a location for the German Armed Forces). After the end of rail operations on the Kreisbahn, the bus depot of the later Kreiswerke Heinsberg was built on the site of the Geilenkirchener Kreisbahn. These took over the passenger transport with buses, which now replaced the passenger trains of the Kreisbahn. Today the former district works are called Heinsberg West Verkehr.
From 1992, Interregio trains on the Aachen–Berlin route ran regularly to Geilenkirchen station. With the introduction of the summer timetable in 2001, this connection was deleted. From the 2013 winter timetable, IC trains on the Aachen–Berlin route stopped at Geilenkirchen station once a day. Since the timetable change in December 2020, Geilenkirchen has been the stopping point for the ICE 1545 Aachen-Berlin (7:31), the ICE 1548 Berlin - Aachen (19:30) and the ICE 846 to Aachen (Sundays 21:21).
In 2008, the city of Geilenkirchen took over the station building from Deutsche Bahn and began urgent renovation work. New business areas are to be integrated into the building. As early as 2008, a McDonald's branch [5] and a bakery opened in the station. A kiosk and a taxi center were to follow, but have not come for years. In addition, an upgraded waiting area with a service counter and new toilet facilities should make staying in and around the station more attractive for the approximately 3,000 commuters a day.