The line passes through heavily-industrialized built-up areas, along with old and very poor housing neighborhoods. The track east of the Dan Ryan expressway is the site of the former parallel double trackage of the Pennsylvania and New York Central railroads, where their nightly expresses for New York City used to 'race' on leaving Englewood Union Station. The site of that station is now just a debris pile, and the tracks have been reduced, during the Conrail regime, to just a single pair, which weaves back and forth between being on the former Pennsy and former NYC right-of-way. At each waterway, only one of the former pair of lifting bridges remains in service.
The flat crossing with the Metra Rock Island District's line south from La Salle Street, at Englewood (MP 515.8), with a through girder bridge over an east-west street right at the crossing, is where the erstwhile Englewood Union Station was on the northeast side of the crossing. and a through girder bridge over a north-south street just east of the crossing, with the signal bridge for the crossing east of that. The DT, ABS, former PRR line has a speed limit of 30 mph on the flat crossing, rising to 50-40 as far as MP 515.2, where it rises to 70-50, past five through girder bridges over streets (some east-west, some north-south), Park Manor Yard (MP 515.1) on the northeast side of the line (where the New York Central line once ran), Grand Crossing, where the former Nickel Plate once had a flat crossing to connect with the erstwhile NYC line, through girder bridges over the Metra Electric and CN/IC main line just west of a through girder bridge over a street, with an erstwhile southeast quadrant connector still discernible, the crossovers at CP 513 (MP 513.3), a signal bridge at the east end of the crossovers, two through girder bridges over streets, a road bridge curving overhead, six through girder bridges over streets, a new cantilever signal bridge turned sideways at MP 512, in November, 2011, the location of "Chicago" Tower (MP 511.8), Intermediate Signals at MP 511.x, and a dragging equipment detector at MP 511.
From MP 510.5, the speed limit is 70-50 on the north track ("Track 1"), and 50-40 on the south track ("Track 2"). The line passes two through girder bridges over streets, a through girder bridge over the Belt Railway of Chicago, from which a connector trails in from the west on the south side of the line, and a signal bridge and crosses the through girder movable bridge over the Calumet Channel (on which the speed limit is 30 mph), with the erstwhile New York Central bridge permanently open on the north side, to CP 509 (MP 509.7).