In the Cahors Commercial Court on 29th April Railcoop was finally put into liquidation, ending the dream of a rail operator owned as a co-operative by its members. It had been placed into judicial administration on 16th October with a deficit of €4.7 million and given six months to raise sufficient capital to pay its debts and launch its proposed Bordeaux – Limoges – Lyon service. A solution was developed based upon the co-operative operating the service with a separate company owning the rolling stock and assets. Although this did not appeal to many of the co-operative members, it was a pragmatic solution to keep Railcoop alive. Spanish infrastructure investor Serena Partners was prepared to put up 60% of the capital required. Railcoop planned to bridge the gap by selling its two X 72500 railcars to Romanian operator Marub SA, although it is unclear how they could have then operated a service. This ran into trouble when ACC M at Clermont-Ferrand, which had been undertaking refurbishment work, refused to release them until an outstanding €160,000 had been paid. ACC M subsequently obtained a court judgement for this amount. 

With over 14,000 individual, civic and corporate members, hundreds of small investors have lost their money following Railcoop’s failure. Typically this was €300-400 for individuals. Amongst the larger supporters of the co-operative were Lyon métropole which invested €100,000, Grand Est région (€300,000), and the city of Toul (€8,000). The latter two would have been served by the proposed Lyon/Grenoble – Dijon – Thionville route, one of the many that Railcoop proposed to introduce following establishment of the Bordeaux – Lyon service.