After five years of struggles to remain financially viable, French rail cooperative Railcoop will come to an end next week. The Cahors Commercial Court shall decide the future of Railcoop on Monday 15 April, and all signs point to liquidation.
The cooperative was put under receivership by the Cahors Commercial Court at the end of October, when it failed to raise 500,000 euros to pay its employees and suppliers. Railcoop was given six months to find new investors and secure capital, but this initiative did not succeed either. “As it stands, the Cahors Commercial Court should have no other choice than to pronounce, on 15 April 2024, the liquidation of our cooperative”, Railcoop said in a message to its members.
Railcoop
Created in 2019, Railcoop was an attempt to develop a private rail company in a market largely dominated by the state-owned group SNCF. Initially created by 32 members, after two years it could count on over 9,000. The main project for the cooperative was a passenger service connecting Lyon to Bordeaux. However, it never came to fruition, with the focus of Railcoop shifting towards rail freight.
Towards the end of 2021, the cooperative launched its first service for goods linking the Aveyron and Lot regions with the Toulouse-St-Jory logistics hub. The first signs of Railcoop’s decline surfaced in April 2023, when this service was discontinued. Almost a year has passed since then, with the demise of the cooperative now being inevitable.
Also read: