Railway cooperative Railcoop said Thursday it had received a letter of intent from a European fund that would likely provide it with some of the means needed to launch trains between Lyon and Bordeaux, but it needs an “urgent and immediate influx of money” to survive. .
Based in Figeac (Lot), the cooperative obtained railway strips (traffic strips) from SNCF Réseau to guarantee from December 15, 2024 a daily round trip between Bordeaux and Lyon, a transversal link abandoned by the SNCF in 2014 that it intends to relaunch. – welcomed its CEO, Nicolas Debaisieux, during a press conference.
The company even plans to open railway lines in Limoges-Lyon from June 8, 2024, but technically it would not be possible to start before the end of summer. In addition, the works will complicate operation and make it difficult to read the timetables, to the point that the team wonders if it would not be better to wait until December to run the trains on the entire Bordeaux-Lyon route.
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Railcoop, which has been seeking financing for months, received at the end of August a letter of intent from “a European fund (…) that invests in industrial infrastructure”, to support this project.
This fund, whose name is not mentioned for reasons of confidentiality, would provide a quarter of the 49 million euros needed to operate the Bordeaux-Lyon line. Another quarter must come from other investors and the remaining half must be borrowed.
The agreement planned by Railcoop includes the creation of two new companies of which the aforementioned fund would be the main shareholder: the first to finance the trains (“Rosco”), and the second to operate them and assume the commercial risk (“Opco”). . Railcoop, which already has the status of a railway company, would be in charge of managing the trains.
This agreement and the launch schedule must be approved by the next general assembly of the cooperative, on October 7.
“There is a risk that we will not achieve it,” acknowledged Nicolas Debaisieux, who renews his “call for citizen mobilization (…) to avoid the end of the cooperative.”
On the verge of suspending payments, Railcoop launched an appeal in June to its 14,500 members to raise 500,000 euros before September 30, to pay salaries and settle suppliers. According to the general director, there is still about 150,000 euros missing.
Railcoop lost 4.7 million euros last year in its freight transport activities, which were abandoned in April. This “commercial failure” allowed him to at least obtain his railway company license, said Nicolas Debaisieux.
Source: BFM TV
