CSX leased its entire portion in 2004 to the Chicago, Fort Wayne and Eastern Railroad (CFE).

The remaining portion of the line from Tolleston into Chicago is now part of the Norfolk Southern's Chicago District, with a small portion of the original PFW&C trackage abandoned in favor of the parallel lines of former competitors which are now part of the modern NS system.

The PFW&C bought the Cleveland, Zanesville and Cincinnati Railroad by deed on July 1, 1865, making it its Akron Branch.

The line ran from Hudson, Ohio, on the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Railroad south through Akron, crossing the PFW&C at Orrville and continuing to Millersburg.

In 1868 a short 3.5 mile (5.5 km) extension to the south was built, and on November 4, 1869, the PFW&C sold the line to the Pittsburgh, Mt.

On June 2, 1994, the Norfolk Southern Railway bought 18 miles (29 km) from Gary to Valparaiso, which had been out of service since 1991, for $1.4 million.

West of Crestline, including the section that had been owned by Norfolk Southern since 1994, went to CSX Transportation, along with the intersecting Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway (better known as the Big Four, a part of the New York Central Railroad system until 1968).

Tracks east of Crestline went to Norfolk Southern, which also obtained trackage rights west of that Ohio city.

At the western end of the route, the original PFW&C line has been abandoned from Buffington (an area of far northwestern Gary, Indiana, abutting East Chicago) northwest for a little over four miles to Whiting, Indiana; at both of these locations there are connections to the parallel tracks of the old Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway (New York Central Railroad).

Northwest of Whiting, the LS&MS itself disappears, and the present-day line goes back to using the old PFW&C tracks, which run the rest of the way into Chicago, carrying both Norfolk Southern freight trains and several Amtrak passenger services.

It also obtained overhead trackage rights along the formerly out-of-service line from Tolleston, at the junction with the old Michigan Central Railroad (now CSX), northwest to Clarke Junction (also in Gary, just north of the Gary-Chicago International Airport), and then west along the former Baltimore and Ohio Chicago Terminal Railroad (now CSX) to Blue Island, Illinois.

Norfolk Southern continues to own the line east of Crestline, Ohio, as well as the part west of Whiting, IN.