The original Illinois Central Markham Yard was built in 1926, and rebuilt as a double hump yard in 1950. The southbound yard had five reception tracks, 48 classification tracks, and four departure tracks. The northbound yard had eight reception tracks, 64 classification tracks, and six departure tracks. The southbound hump was closed in 1989, and the northbound in 1990, mostly because the yard was so inefficient in assembling trains in the days of 8,000 ft. manifests, since all of its tracks were so much shorter than the trains they had to build. By 2000, much of the yard had been converted to intermodal.
The yard is located on the east side of the CN, former IC, main line from Chicago to southern Illinois, in the Homewood area south of Chicago.