In this impasse, the Company acquired another engineer, William Gregory, and a new Contractor, Jonathan Edwin Billups, who it seems was prepared to undertake the work for £110,000, but he would accept £60,000 of that in shares and £33,000 in debenture stock, only requiring £18,000 in cash. As a means of actually starting construction, this was attractive to the board, although by now they had not even the £18,000: of the £25,930 subscribed £10,000 had been spent on Parliamentary costs—an extension of time had been applied for and granted—and land acquisition, and a further £10,000 was considered to be committed. Nonetheless Billups was asked to start work, which he did on 18 June 1888.