On November 25 the directors held a meeting and appointed Messrs. Eckstein Norton, late president of the Louisville & Nashville; Wm. Solomon, of Speyer & Co.; Jacob H. Schiff, of Kuhn, Loeb & Co.; Chas. S. Fairchild, president of the New York Security & Trust Company; and Louis Fitzgerald, president of the Mercantile Trust Company, a committee to carefully inquire into and examine the condition of the Terminal properties and to aid the company in perfecting a plan of readjustment. Owing to the financial depression, they explained, “the company has been unable to sell securities based upon engagements they had made prior to the period of depression and to pay for necessary equipment and improvements. A large floating debt has in this way been accumulated, but each of our important railroad systems is solvent.... After maturely considering the whole situation, we felt it wise to invite the gentlemen whose names appear ... to aid us in perfecting the best plan for a permanent adjustment of our affairs.”[353] The committee reported provisionally on December 8. It then stated that it was essential to the proposed plan of relief that the elections of all the subordinate companies in the Richmond Terminal system should be postponed till after the Richmond Terminal affairs were settled, and requested that financial provision be made for the employment of an expert or experts in the examination of the properties and accounts. It was understood that the committee’s plan was to make a considerable assessment on the stockholders. The board of directors refused to respond and the committee therefore withdrew.[354] The next day the stockholders selected Mr. F. P. Olcott to appoint a new committee to take up the work.[355] They were not in favor of radical action, and Mr. Olcott expressed the opinion that there was no necessity for measures so stringent as those which the Schiff-Norton Committee had had in mind. It was but natural that at this point there should have been some delay. Meetings were held, expedients for raising cash discussed, and a reorganization plan was gradually whipped into shape. It was not, therefore, until March 19, 1892, that the public were informed what Mr. Olcott and his backers did consider that the situation required. The main points of the elaborate scheme which was then proposed were as follows: First, a consolidation of the Richmond Terminal, Richmond & Danville, and East Tennessee properties. The Central of Georgia and the Erlanger systems were not to be included in the reorganization, but the interest of the Richmond Terminal and the East Tennessee in their stock was to be made subject to a new mortgage. Second, a reduction in fixed charges. Third, the sale of securities to pay off the floating debt.