Nishi-Shigi Cable Line

The line is a single-track funicular worked by two counterbalanced cars on a 480-per-mille maximum gradient, electrified at 200 V; the ascent takes about seven minutes. At the foot it connects with the Shigi Line, while at the summit Takayasuyama Station links to a Kintetsu bus service toward Shigisan. Unusually for a cable railway, the line has two level crossings that ordinary pedestrians may cross — a feature it shares in Japan only with Kintetsu's own Ikoma Cable Line. Fares are calculated separately under the special cable-line tariff, and from 1 August 2015 transport IC cards such as PiTaPa and ICOCA became usable at the line.

The line opened on 15 December 1930, when the Shigisan Electric Railway inaugurated both a cable line between Shigisanguchi and Takayasuyama and a mountaintop railway line from Takayasuyama to Shigisanmon. Less than a year later, on 29 October 1931, the operating company changed its name to the Shigisan Express Electric Railway. The cable line and the level mountaintop line were run together as a single system serving pilgrims and visitors bound for Mount Shigi.

On 1 August 1938 operation was entrusted to the Osaka Electric Tramway, and the two lines were renamed the Shinkyū Cable Line and the Shinkyū Level Line, collectively the Shinkyū Line. During the Second World War both were suspended on 7 January 1944 as a 'non-urgent line', their materials being surrendered for the war effort. A few months later, on 1 April 1944, the Kansai Express Railway — a forerunner of today's Kintetsu — absorbed the Shigisan Express Electric Railway, whose railway operations were by then dormant.

The level mountaintop line never returned: it was formally abolished on 12 March 1957 and replaced by buses, its former trackbed later turned into a road that today forms part of the Shigi-Ikoma Skyline. The cable line, by contrast, was rebuilt, and on 21 March 1957 it reopened as the Shigi Cable Line. Because the prewar cable cars had been scrapped during the 1944 suspension, new cars of the Ko 7 type were built by Hitachi for the reopening, carrying the nicknames 'Zuiun' and 'Shōun'.

On 1 October 1964 the line took its present name, the Nishi-Shigi (West Shigi) Cable Line. The change came when the Shigi-Ikoma Electric Railway was merged into Kintetsu and its own cable car, on the eastern side of the mountain, was renamed the Higashi-Shigi (East Shigi) Cable Line; the western line was renamed to match. That eastern cable line — which had opened in 1922 and linked Shigisanshita with the mountain — was itself closed in 1983 and replaced by buses, leaving the Nishi-Shigi line as the surviving cable approach to Mount Shigi.

In recent decades the line's role has remained that of a short tourist and pilgrimage funicular, its service hours and frequency adjusted to connect with the Shigi Line below, and overnight running is still operated each New Year alongside the Shigi Line for visitors to the temple. On 6 August 2022 a lightning strike damaged the line's electrical equipment and suspended operation; normal services resumed on 16 September 2022. Today the Nishi-Shigi Cable Line continues to carry passengers between Shigisanguchi and Takayasuyama in about seven minutes, two cars rising and descending in counterbalance up the mountainside.

• 193015 December: the Shigisan Electric Railway opens the cable line (Shigisanguchi–Takayasuyama) together with the mountaintop railway line (Takayasuyama–Shigisanmon).
• 193129 October: the operator, the Shigisan Electric Railway, is renamed the Shigisan Express Electric Railway.
• 19381 August: operation is entrusted to the Osaka Electric Tramway; the cable line and level line are named the Shinkyū Cable Line and Shinkyū Level Line.
• 19447 January: the Shinkyū Cable Line and Level Line are suspended as a wartime 'non-urgent line' and their materials are surrendered.
• 19441 April: the Kansai Express Railway, a forerunner of Kintetsu, absorbs the then-dormant Shigisan Express Electric Railway.
• 195712 March: the level mountaintop line is abolished and replaced by buses; its trackbed later becomes part of the Shigi-Ikoma Skyline road.
• 195721 March: the cable line reopens as the Shigi Cable Line; new Ko 7-type cars ('Zuiun', 'Shōun') are built by Hitachi for the reopening.
• 19641 October: the line is renamed the Nishi-Shigi Cable Line, as the merged Shigi-Ikoma Electric Railway's eastern cable line becomes the Higashi-Shigi Cable Line.
• 1983The Higashi-Shigi Cable Line on the eastern side of the mountain (opened 1922) is closed and replaced by buses, leaving Nishi-Shigi as the surviving cable approach.
• 20151 August: transport IC cards such as PiTaPa and ICOCA become usable on the line.
• 20226 August: a lightning strike damages the line's electrical equipment, suspending operation.
• 202216 September: normal services resume from the first train.