At the end of the year President Reinhart went to Europe to float a loan. On his return, after a failure to obtain subscriptions, a receivership was applied for and granted. It had been hoped up to the very last moment that the January interest could be met; but the refusal of English bondholders to subscribe additional capital, the failure to place a third mortgage loan in the United States, and the death of Director Magoun, one of the strong influences in Atchison’s affairs, made a crash inevitable. Current obligations had mounted to over $10,000,000, credit had disappeared, and the railroad necessarily succumbed. The Atlantic & Pacific, the Colorado Midland, the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe, and the Southern California lines were not included in the Atchison receivership, though the Atchison receivers were given like office in respect to the Atlantic & Pacific.[433] The Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe announced that it would continue to operate its own line, and was prepared to pay its current obligations as before.[434] No sooner was failure announced than committees of bondholders sprang up. In Boston a committee was formed with six members, including J. L. Thorndike and H. L. Higginson. In New York the Union Trust Company, the Mercantile Trust Company, the New York Life Insurance Company, Baring, Magoun & Co., and Giddes & Smith got together in a committee, with Edward King as chairman. A second New York committee, R. Somers Hayes, chairman, was formed by express invitation of the road. A directors’ committee was organized, of which E. B. Cheney, Jr., was chairman. The London holders of the second mortgage class A bonds themselves formed a committee. Even before 1888 Englishmen had invested heavily in Atchison, attracted perhaps by glowing stories of the business to spring up across the western plains. It was said that not only had they been influential in shaping the reorganization of 1889, but that from that date to 1893 the management had been controlled by a board elected by proxies entrusted to representatives of English interest. In particular Englishmen had become interested in the second mortgage bonds of 1892, successors to the income bonds of 1889, holding about one-half of the total issue, and they now fought for the protection of this issue as against the stock.