From the passenger station at Staples (MP 148.0), with an old brick two-storey depot on the east side, and crossovers and the junction (MP 147.8), where the 2MT main line turns southeast while the single track ex-NP Duluth line continues just south of due east, Track Warrant Control, dark (unsignaled), and thus speed limit 49 mph, past Hayden, turning east past the 6,404 ft. siding at Motley (MP 141.0), southeast past Wheelock, curvily just north of due east past the 6,310 ft. siding at Pillager (MP 132.1), Sylvan, Baxter, the 6,840 ft. siding at Brainerd (MP 117.0), where stubs of former BN lines extend short distances both north and south, northeast past the 8,946 ft. siding at Loerch (MP 111.5), a detector at MP 108.0, Klondyke, Deerwood (MP 101.9), where erstwhile Soo and NP lines once trailed in on the south side, an erstwhile joint NP-Soo line once trailed in on the north side, and an erstwhile Soo line once headed away north.
The line turns just north of due east at Cedar lake, past Aitkin (MP 91.5), a detector at MP 88.1), Rossberg, where that erstwhile Soo line once made a very acute angled crossing, and the 8,000 ft. siding at Kimberly (MP 79.6), where it turns northeast, Lansford, where it turns east, the 5,994 ft. siding at McGregor (MP 72.0), where another erstwhile Soo line once crossed and the line turns east-northeast and then just north of due east past Grayling, Tamarack, Wright (MP 55.6), the 9,000 ft. siding at Woodbury (MP 53.8), a detector at MP 51.2, and Cromwell (MP 50.0), where it turns east, past the 6,387 ft. siding at Corona (MP 44.0), Sawyer, an erstwhile branch tailing in from the southwest, the 6,386 ft. siding at Carlton (MP 28.5), where the first spike of the Northern Pacific was drive, and CTC starts, and the junction with the Lakes subdivision, coming from the north, at Chub Lake (MP 28.4).