Inman Yard was built by the Southern Railway in 1957, and has been expanded since. By the 1980s, the manifest hump yard had 16 reception tracks, 65 classification tracks, and 16 departure tracks, classifying 2500 cars per day and originating or terminating 56 manifest trains, while the intermodal hump to its north had 20 classification tracks. The yard area also had an engine house, car shops, and a rail welding plant. The classification hump was closed in 1993, even as the intermodal yard expanded in size, with eight of the manifest reception tracks removed in favor of more intermodal space. (There are now only six tracks in the former Receiving Yard, and nine tracks in the Forwarding Yard, alongside the main line.)
The yard is located along the south side of the former Southern main line, west of the junctions in the center of Atlanta.