The entire line, 307.9 km (191 mi) in length, is located in Shandong Province and was built from 1981 to 1985.
The Yanzhou–Shijiusuo railway was funded by the first major installment of Japanese assistance loan that China received after embarking on economic reforms in the late 1970s.
[1] In December 1979, the Chinese and Japanese governments agreed to a development assistance loan of 50 billion Japanese yen (about US$220 million at the exchange rates of the time) to build the ports of Qinhuangdao and Shijiusuo (Rizhao) and rail lines feeding the ports, the Beijing–Qinhuangdao and Yanzhou–Shijiusuo.
[1] The first loan-funded projects in China were designed to facilitate the export sales of coal to Japan.
[1] At the time, natural resource sales was an important means of earning hard currency for China's economy.