Europe's Most Iconic Trains: 17 Legendary Routes to Take by Train
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Published on 11/3/26
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On paper, the plan was simple: to revive an abandoned rail line between Bordeaux and Lyon using public savings rather than public funds. Five years later, Railcoop has not run a single passenger train and has been placed in receivership. Speaking with Benjamin for our podcast, Philippe Bourguignon, a founding board member and the cooperative’s last president, reflects on what worked, what went wrong, and what this failure says about the role we give (or don’t give) to rail travel in France.
The project was launched in the Lot region by a small team with deep knowledge of rural life and the nonprofit sector, based on a simple observation: existing, underutilized infrastructure and a real need for transportation among residents who can no longer drive. The initial idea was not just to run one train between Bordeaux and Lyon, but two: a daytime round-trip train and a nighttime sleeper train, using the same rolling stock, with the seats converting into berths once night falls to offset the cost of operation by keeping the train running continuously.
Philippe Bourguignon sums up one of the project’s key findings: “Many people don’t take the train because there aren’t enough of them.”
On the line in question, regional trains ran only a few times a day, with frequent delays due to the condition of the track. Service was too infrequent to be truly competitive with cars.
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The financing was based on a novel approach for the sector: a community fundraising campaign organized around “circles” of passionate members (governance, freight, geographic routes, etc.), supported by extensive media coverage and strong word-of-mouth. In total, Railcoop raised approximately 8.5 million euros from 14,000 members and 36 local governments, a rare achievement for a cooperative, but one that still fell far short of the project's actual needs.
Since there are no new trains available on the market (there is no “concession” system for trains, as there is for cars), Railcoop has chosen to purchase and refurbish existing rolling stock: trainsets X 72,500, which were taken out of service by SNCF Voyageurs due to technical issues, but are still being operated without any reported problems by Romanian operators who acquired them. One train set was purchased and entrusted to the company ACCM in Clermont-Ferrand to be dismantled and to assess the cost of its restoration.
The night train quickly ran into an obstacle that might seem trivial but is anything but: there was no one left to operate the switches at night on these rural lines. Running trains at those times would therefore have required the company to pay for its own night staff—a cost the project had not initially anticipated. With each travel time study conducted with SNCF Réseau, the estimated travel times also increased: construction, slowdowns, aging signaling systems… The network was in worse condition than expected.
One figure has been widely reported in the press: it is said that it would have cost 50 million euros to open the Bordeaux-Lyon line alone, though some experts cite figures closer to 200 to 300 million, citing examples such as Trenitalia’s entry into the French market (which involved high-speed rail, making a direct comparison difficult). Philippe Bourguignon defends the figure of 50 million, which was arrived at with the help of former SNCF executives and railroad workers who joined the cooperative’s expert groups: "While I have no qualms about 50, if someone mentions two or three hundred, I think some people are really exaggerating."
His conclusion regarding the nature of the problem: "It's not a funding issue. It's a matter of resource allocation, but not a funding issue."
Following an attempted rescue by a Spanish investment fund in the fall of 2023, and subsequent placement under court-supervised restructuring, the Cahors Commercial Court ordered the liquidation of Railcoop on April 29, 2024. The funds invested by the 14,000 members and partner local authorities have been permanently lost, and the Bordeaux-Lyon line, which the SNCF closed in 2014, still has no operator.
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Beyond Railcoop, Philippe Bourguignon advocates for a broader vision of the role of rail. First, there is a technical argument: rail-to-rail contact consumes 6 to 10 times less energy than tire-to-road contact. Next, a health-related argument: according to Santé publique France, air pollution from fine particulate matter is linked to approximately 40,000 premature deaths per year in France. This is an actual figure (even though it encompasses all sources of pollution—road traffic, wood heating, industry—and not just road traffic, as the interview suggests). Finally, there’s the land-use argument: a railroad track occupies a much narrower width than a highway, with a much more limited impact on biodiversity and habitat continuity.
When it comes to his own relationship with trains, Philippe Bourguignon doesn’t shy away from the irony of the situation: “These days, I have to say, I think about trains practically day and night. So I’ve definitely become a train addict—let’s be honest.”
This 2018 report recommended closing approximately 9,000 km of lines deemed unprofitable, without examining the rail industry’s business model or actual passenger demand. This decision seems all the more outdated given that rail traffic has continued to grow since then, with trains now regularly running at full capacity.
In this regard, the Railcoop initiative remains a valuable experience for the entire sector: it has demonstrated that there is genuine public interest in rail service on small lines, while also revealing the limitations of the cooperative model when faced with investment needs amounting to tens of millions of euros.
Railcoop will remain one of the most ambitious initiatives in citizen-led transportation in France: a day-and-night train service between Bordeaux and Lyon, funded by 14,000 individuals convinced that an abandoned rail line could be brought back to life. The failure isn’t due to a lack of enthusiasm (the figures, on the contrary, show genuine support), but to an obstacle far greater than anticipated: the actual cost of refurbishing aging infrastructure, and a cooperative model ill-suited for projects costing tens of millions of euros.
This reinforces a simple belief: it’s worth investing in small-scale rail lines, but on the right scale and with the right financing tools.
Issue du monde de la communication et des médias, Sophie est Responsable éditoriale chez HOURRAIL ! depuis août 2024. Elle est notamment derrière le contenu éditorial du site ainsi que La Locomissive (de l'inspiration voyage bas carbone et des bons plans, un jeudi sur deux, gratuitement dans ta boîte mail !).
Convaincue que les changements d’habitude passent par la transformation de nos imaginaires, elle s’attache à montrer qu’il est possible de voyager autrement, de manière plus consciente, plus lente et plus joyeuse. Son objectif : rendre le slow travel accessible à toutes et tous, à travers des astuces, des décryptages et surtout, de nouveaux récits.
