After a short interval more steamers, each of about 2,000 tons gross, were added to the fleet in 1884. These were the HELLENES, built by Richardson, Duck & Co., and engined by G. Clark, of Sunderland—length 270 feet, beam 40 feet, and depth 18 feet 7 inches; and the HESPERIDES, built by R. & J. Evans & Co., and engined by George Forrester & Co., Liverpool—length 286 feet, beam 38 feet, and depth 24 feet. The following year (1885) a larger boat than any yet built for the firm was added to the fleet. This was the HELIADES, built by Richardson, Duck & Co., Stockton. She was 320 feet long, and of proportionate beam and depth. Her gross register was about 3,000 tons, and she was fitted with triple-expansion engines by T. Richardson & Co., of West Hartlepool, with which class of engines all the succeeding steamers have been fitted. A sister ship, but having more powerful engines, the HERACLIDES was launched for the firm in July, 1886. She was followed in 1889 by the HIPPOMENES, built at Belfast by Workman, Clark & Co., and the HYDARNES and the HELLOPES, built at Port Glasgow by J. Reid & Co. These steamers, like their immediate predecessors, were each of about 3,000 tons gross register, and were all practically of the same dimensions. The whole of these four steamers are fitted with refrigerators for the carriage of frozen meat from the River Plate. Mr. Alfred S. Collard, a gentleman with a large and varied experience in the River Plate trade, and one thoroughly conversant with the working and requirements of an important steamship line, joined Mr. Houston as partner in 1893. During the closing years of the last and beginning of the present century the quantity of railway rolling stock and plant for shipment to the River Plate was so great that it was not an uncommon event for the Brunswick Station of the Cheshire Lines Railway to be almost entirely blocked with wagons of railway material consigned for shipment by the Houston Line. So large were some of these packages, they could only be brought through from the manufacturers on Sunday, it being impossible to convey them on the railway while the ordinary traffic was being carried on. In 1898 Messrs. Russell & Co., of Port Glasgow, built two sister ships of over 3,500 tons gross register for Messrs. Houston. These were the HERMINIUS and the HORATIUS.