Shigaraki Kōgen Railway
Shigaraki Kōgen Railway Co., Ltd. (信楽高原鐵道株式会社 Shigaraki Kōgen Tetsudō Kabushiki-gaisha) is a Japanese Third Sector railway company whose investors are Shiga Prefecture and the city of Koka.
The railway operates the Shigaraki Line, a former Japanese National Railways line that was transferred to the third sector in 1987. The Shigaraki Line runs from Kibukawa on the JR West Kusatsu Line and Shigaraki. The original plans called for the line to ultimately extend past Shiragaki to Kamo on the Kansai Main Line.
A current proposal calls for the Shiragaki Line to be part of a single-line connection from Maibara to suburban Osaka; the proposal consists of a direct connection from the Ohmi Railway Main Line to the Shigaraki Line at Kibukawa, infrastructure upgrades on the Shigaraki Line, and a new line from Shiragaki and connecting with the Gakkentoshi Line in southern Kyoto Prefecture.
The Shigaraki train disaster happened on the line in May 1991, when a through train from JR West collided head-on with a Shigaraki Kōgen Railway train, killing 42 people.