Ties and rails have been replaced primarily with crushed limestone (asphalt was used in short sections near road crossings), and old railroad bridges have been re-decked for use by cyclists and pedestrians.

Beginning at the planned eastern terminus at 772.1' by the location of the former Trafford North Station, the trail follows Turtle Creek toward its headwaters near PA Route 66.

From here the trail descends towards the causeway across the Beaver Run Reservoir at an elevation of 1069.8', rising again to its current high point of 1193.5' as it passes through a cut about 1/4 mile west of route 819.

[7] A model derrick as well as a plaque and display stand by the trail in Murrysville, honoring the gas well tapped by the Haymaker brothers in 1878, though the exact location of that well is not known precisely.

[8] Finally, the ruins of a railroad bridge and the turn of the century brickyard once serviced by it lie across the creek from the trail in Monroeville near TCKR milepost number 2 in Trafford.

[12] With this first five-mile segment from Saltsburg to Slickville completed, momentum for development of the trail continued to grow, and a 3.7 mile westward extension towards Delmont was opened in 2013.

[21] On the western front, expansion from Trafford must first involve acquisition of the rights to the final fraction of a mile of the Turtle Creek Industrial Railway, currently owned by Norfolk Southern.

[24][25] At its eastern terminus, the WHT connects seamlessly to the West Penn Trail, which is part of the 320 mile Pittsburgh-to-Harrisburg Main Line Canal Greenway.

The first shows the WHT only briefly,[33] while the second features Conrad riding through a few different sections of the trail, which includes the Turtle Creek gorge before the railroad tracks were removed.