Eastern Railroad Discussion > Seeking Info on ex-L&N Yard at Latonia (on the Short Line)

I made my first trip to the Covington, Ky. area in ages earlier this month. After stumbling on a pretty good train store on Decoursey Ave. next to the old "Short Line" in Latonia with a good railfan friend, we then stumbled onto the nearby Railway Museum of Greater Cincinnati, an outdoor collection of various pieces of rolling stock.

Can anyone give me any background information on the former yard that hosts this museum? The current physical condition suggests it hasn't been used as a yard in decades, but an aerial photo from the 1960s shows it as being a fairly substantial facility. And, what was it called? Just "Latonia Yard"? A quick glace at an old employee timetable from my collection says there was a piggyback ramp in this area, but I couldn't find much else.

Thanks in advance.

Was DeCoursey Yard.  Queensgate supplanted it.  Not used now, except to store cars, trans.  

BobE

The previous response was incorrect.  The yard you saw was not DeCoursey Yard.  DeCoursey is located a couple of miles south of Latonia, and in its day was L&N's largest yard.  It was about 4 miles in length and had 2 humps.

I don't know the history of the smaller Latonia Yard.  It was built adjacent to the LCL Sub., aka the Short Line.  When originally built, the Short Line crossed the Covington & Lexington (later the Kentucky Central) at Latonia, where the Latonia wye now exists.  The Short Line continued on east to Newport and across the Ohio River.  Eventually both the Short Line and the Kentucky Central became part of the L&N.

A guess would be the Latonia Yard was built to serve industries in the area as well as to interchange with other railroads.  Hopefully, someone can respond with a better answer.

Yeah, I should've stated earlier I was not talking about the larger- and better-known Decoursey, as I visited that facility many times in the late-70s and early-80s. And I'm sure I drove very close to this yard in Latonia a few times back in the day, too, but never noticed it.

I rode through there several times as a kid.  I remember going past it but not much else other than we had no trouble seeing the engines and several cars on our train going around the curve between the LCL and the line going south to Corbin.   Wish I could remember more about it.  Somewhere around my place I have some old track charts that may have some information.  If I can find them in the next day or two I'll post what I find here.

John

Thanks much, John. 'Much appreciated.