With the year 1888 a new period in the history of the Reading began. The long struggle to bring the company back to solvency was fairly over, and for the first time in seven years the road saw before it a chance for genuine prosperity. Unlike the reorganization of 1880–3, that of 1884–7 succeeded in accomplishing the greater part of the saving expected of it. According to the plan, interest charges were to be reduced to $4,233,055;—in 1888 they were $4,516,433, and in 1889 $4,058,139; rentals were not to exceed $2,350,000;—in 1888 they were $2,882,582, and in 1889 $2,842,319. Other payments, it is true, the necessity for which was passed over by the advocates of the plan, raised the total which the road was obliged to meet, but did not prevent a comfortable balance of over $2,000,000 for the Railroad Company in 1888, and one of $1,444,000 for both Railroad and Coal Companies combined. During the next few years large sums were spent in improving the permanent way. By January, 1889, almost the entire line between New York and Philadelphia had been relaid with 85 and 90 pound rails; grades had been smoothed, bridges strengthened, and culverts strengthened or rebuilt. Less satisfactory than the results for the Railroad Company, however, were those for the Coal & Iron Company. In this case profits of $654,211 for 1887 turned into a loss of $806,222 for 1888, and in the following year a weak demand for coal, combined with a high cost of mining, increased the loss to $974,373. President Corbin felt called upon to explain that prior to 1886 the deficits of the Coal Company had been habitually met by inflating the capital account of the Railroad Company; so that with allowance for this fact the showing of the companies under his management had been relatively good.[232] In November, 1889, a letter of Mr. Gowen’s was issued, hopeful as ever, criticising the management for their refusal or neglect to give authoritative information about actual earnings, but pointing to the large expense for new coal cars, barges, and collieries, and explaining the benefit which these would confer.[233]