The station opened on 3 September 1888 and was known as
Kilbirnie Junction, however it was renamed Giffen on 1 October 1889. Giffen had three platforms, a small station building, and at one point at least seven members of staff. A one time station master was Mr Willie Haining and his son Billy was born in the station master's house in April 1934. The station had large concrete letters spelling out the name with, oddly, a
triskelion or Isle of Man symbol set between the two words. Sunday school pupils would walk to the station from Barrmill for a day out in
Saltcoats. Today (2011) the three platforms of Giffen station still exist (although overgrown and in disrepair), and a single intact railway line runs through the station from
Lugton to
DM Beith. This track was used regularly to transport supplies into the base, however the track became disused in 1996 and the majority is now overgrown. The connection with the main line at Lugton was lifted in 2008 as part of the track doubling operations on the Lugton to Stewarton section of the Glasgow to Carlisle via Dumfries railway line. The track near Lugton did see one more recent use on 2 September 2000 when it was used in a rail crash simulation in order to test emergency response times as a result of the
Paddington rail crash in 1999. A footpath on old OS maps as running from the nearby
Nettlehirst house down to the station and then to the Gatend and South Barr road via an overbridge. A feature of WWII was the use of the line for what locals called the night time 'Ghost Trains' that carried injured service personnel to the Glasgow hospitals from where they had been landed at the port of Ardrossan. == Views of the station area ==