From the crossovers and junction between the Moorhead sub. from Fargo and Benson, from the west-northwest, and the Marshall sub. from Sioux City, trailing in from the southwest where the line turns just north of due east at the yard at Willmar (MP 102.3), the line continues, single track, CTC, speed limit 40 mph, past a spur on the north side where the erstwhile GN line to St. Cloud once headed away, Kandiyohi (MP 98.6), a turn to the east, the 10,452 ft. siding at Atwater (MP 89.2), and Grove City (MP 84.1), where the line turns just south of due east, past a detector at MP 82.3), the 8,713 ft. siding at Litchfield (MP 76.4), Darwin (MP 70.3), and the 8,547 ft. siding at Dassel (MP 65.2), turning east past a detector at MP 61.8, Cokato (MP 59.4) and Smith Lake, and southeast to the 15,614 ft. siding at Howard Lake (MP 53.0).
The line turns east again, past Warren and Montrose (MP 45.3), curvily east-southeast past a detector at MP 41.0, the 10,291 ft. siding at Delano (MP 38.6), Maple Plain (MP 31.6), Long Lake (MP 29.7), the former crossing with an erstwhile Minnesota Western line, the 10,722 ft. siding and junction with the Dakota Rail Hutchinson Branch from the west (i.e., on the south side) at Wayzata (MP 24.3), where there is a 30 mph speed restriction, Holdridge, a detector at MP 20.5, where CTC ends and Track Warrant Control Automatic Block Signals start as the line turns just north of due east, the former junction with an erstwhile GN line from the south-southwest at Hutchinson Junction, a bridge carrying a Canadian Pacific line overhead, the junction with the Twin Cities & Western (former Milwaukee Road) Cedar Lake Spur from the south at Cedar Lake Junction (MP 13.0), where the speed limit has dropped to 25 mph, and the line turns east-northeast, and the junction with the Monticello sub. from the west (i.e., on the north side) at Lyndale Junction (MP 12.4).