The line begins in Konya and runs southeast through Karaman until turning south at Ulukışla and joining the Adana–Mersin railway at Yenice.

[1] It served an important role during World War I in transporting troops and materiel to the fronts in Mesopotamia and Palestine.

The first section of the route, between Konya and Karaman, is an electrified, double track, higher-speed railway which hosts YHT high-speed train service.

This 201 km (125 mi) section ran across the relatively flat Konya Plain, allowing construction to progress smoothly.

Following a further delay by the Young Turk Revolution, construction of the railway continued in December 1909, opening to Ulukışla on 1 July 1911.

The most challenging section of the railway, through the Taurus Mountains, was constructed in the two parts: southward from Ulukışla in the north and northward from Yenice in the south.

The railway played a very important role in transporting Ottoman and German troops to the Middle-East putting immense pressure on the completion of the tunnels.

Following the British withdrawal from central Anatolia, the railway north of Pozantı fell under the control of the Turkish nationalist forces.

Following the Turkish victory in the Franco-Turkish War, an agreement was signed between the Ankara government and France, splitting the ownership of the railway in two.

Similar to the previous Franco-British arrangement, the split would be at Pozantı and the northern 281 km (175 mi) section of the line would be taken over by the Ankara government, while the southern 63 km (39 mi) section would be taken over by the Cilicia and North Syria Railway (CNS), a French company, along with the rest of Baghdad Railway from Pozantı to Nusaybin.

[9] The first phase of the project was the upgrade of the railway between Konya and Karaman (102 km (63 mi)), which was completed in 2021 and opened on 8 January 2022.