The Gettysburg Scenic departs from a depot adjacent to the former Western Maryland line now used by CSX, and runs thirty or so miles north to an interchange with a (now) Norfolk Southern line that was once part of the Reading Railroad (as was the route of the Gettysburg Scenic itself). The normal tourist operations on this line only use the southernmost 11 or so miles of the line. From the depot in Gettysburg, on the north side of the former Western Maryland line that once served as the branch's southern connection, with a depot on the east side of the line, the line heads just west of due north, then north-northeast, northwest, north-northeast again, and then north.
At Biglersville, where the depot is on the west side of the line, it passes an apple-packing house, turns east-northeast at Bendersville, past Gardners, where there is an apple juice plant as the line turns north again, then northeast and north again past Peach Glen, where there is another juice plant, Hunters Run, where a branch from Pine Grove Furnace once trailed in from the west, Starners, Green Mountain, Mount Holly Springs, and Mount Holly Yard, where there is a run-around track, just south of the junction with the former Reading Shippensburg line at Carlisle Junction.