from Williamsport: one to Buffalo and one to northwestern Pennsylvania's soft coal region in Clearfield County; a third, in collaboration with the B&O, that would form a direct line from Washington, DC through Philadelphia to New York; and most ambitiously a fourth — the so-called South Penn line — that would extend the Reading's western reach from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh. They formed a syndicate including steelmakers Andrew Carnegie, Henry Oliver, Henry Clay Frick, Pennsylvania career politician J. Donald Cameron, and—paradoxically, given Gowen's longstanding litigious hostility to Standard Oil — John D. and William Rockefeller. Operating in the atmosphere of improved business conditions generally, the Reading Railroad emerged from receivership in February 1883. That year witnessed continued improvement in the Reading's rail businesses, and in his annual report at the end of the year, Gowen made glowing predictions of prosperity for the road overall, including its new expansionist endeavors. "The company has now surmounted the difficulties of the last four eventful years", Gowen proclaimed; but that was not an accurate assessment of all the facts. Nevertheless, President Gowen seized the moment of high praise from American shareholders for "rescuing our property from bankruptcy against the malignant and determined efforts of its enemies and conspirators to foreclose and wreck it", to remove himself from the official duties and pressures of president. At the January 1884 annual meeting he resigned in favor of his recommended successor, George deBenneville Keim, his close friend and associate since their days as young attorneys in Pottsville. Gowen's resignation was over the objections of his ally and friend, William Vanderbilt; but the former assured the recent investor in the Reading that the nature of his relationship with Keim would assure his close involvement in all matters related to running the company. The same meeting that elected Keim authorized a new US$12 million loan issue to pay the recently increased floating debt and the balance due on the Jersey Central deal. It considered a proposal from Gowen of paying out a 21% dividend on preferred stock, in case the loan issue should be successfully placed. However, in spite of President Gowen's glowing predictions at the end of calendar year 1883, "[s]carcely any of the benefits of [his] plan of reorganization had been secured; fixed charges had not been reduced, because it had been impossible to get creditors to take new securities in exchange for the old, and equally impossible