From the junction with the joint Milwaukee Road trackage out of the north side of Chicago Union Station at Western Avenue (MP 311.6), the double track, current-of-traffic, manual block, maximum speed 20 mph, Panhandle line curves south to Rockwell Junction, where the Chicago & Northwestern line comes alongside to the west, and then heads south past a bridge carrying the CTA Oak Park line overhead, a bridge over the erstwhile Chicago, Aurora & Elgin, a bridge over the CTA Des Plaines line in the center of the Eisenhower Expressway, the flat crossings with the B&OCT, coming from the west and turning south on the east side of the PRR, and C&NW, turning from the west side into Wood Street Yard, at 12th Street (MP 309.9), a bridge over Roosevelt Road, a bridge over Ogden Avenue, a bridge carrying the CB&Q overhead, with a southwest quadrant connector trailing in on the west side, and a bridge carrying the CTA 54th & Cermak line overhead.
There is a bridge over 22nd Street, the flat crossing with the former Illinois Northern at 26th Street (MP 308.3), a spur to the Chicago & Illinois Western on the west side at 31st Street, the Drainage Canal Drawbridge (MP 307.8), the westernmost of four at this location over the extension of the Chicago River's South Branch, the flat crossings with the Illinois Central and Santa Fe at Ash Street (MP 307.7), a bridge carrying I-55 overhead, the flat crossing with the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio at Brighton Park (MP 307.1), a turn south-southeast, connections on the east side into Ashland Avenue Yard, a turn back to the south and flat crossing with the B&OCT (exchanging the relative positions of the two lines, so that the PRR is now on the east side) at 49th Street (MP 305.6), a bridge carrying the Indiana Harbor Belt and Grand Trunk Western overhead, a bridge over 51st Street, a bridge over 55th Street, and the wye on the east side at 59th Street with the connector east to 58th Street on the PRR main line between Chicago and Fort Wayne.