Queensgate Yard was built in the late 1970s, opening in 1980, to replace the yards of the Chessie System's constituents in the Cincinnati area, including not only the five former C&O and B&O yards covered over by the new yard (A Yard, Brighton Yard, Mill Creek Yard, and the Stock Yard, all B&O, plus C&O's Liberty Yard), but also the C&O yard at Silver Grove (which had a 26-track eastbound classification hump and a 14-track westbound flat-switched yard). After the formation of CSX, the former L&N De Coursey Yard (which had two humps) was closed in favor of Queensgate in 1984, as was the former B&O Oakley yard in 1987. Coincidentally, perhaps, Conrail closed the former PRR Undercliff Yard in 1980 and the former NYC Sharonville hump yard in 1987. The NS (former Southern) Gest Street Yard is the only pre-1980 yard in the Mill Creek Valley that still survives.
Queensgate Yard has eight reception tracks, 50 classification tracks and six departure tracks. The yard sorts about 2000 cars per day (with a theoretical capacity of 3200 cars per day). In 1995, the yard built manifest trains destined for Ashland, KY, Chicago, Columbus, southward on the L&N to Corbin and beyond (5 trains), Detroit (3), Indianapolis, southwestward on the L&N to Louisville and beyond (6 trains), Russell, KY (2), Saginaw, MI, St. Louis (4), Toledo, Dayton, and Willard, OH (3). New destinations since adding part of Conrail in 1999 include Selkirk, NY, and several others.
The yard is located along the east side of the Mill Creek, west and northwest of downtown Cincinnati, and is crossed by all the major street viaducts crossing that valley south of Colerain Avenue.