 He raised 5,000 pounds in new funds to upgrade the line and began filling in the remaining portions of the piles.A major threat to the operations was the construction of a spur from the competing Port Hope, Lindsay and Beaverton Railway (PHL&B), which had started pushing towards Peterborough and reached it on 12 May 1858.In order to ward off this upcoming threat, Dumble arranged contracts with a number of lumber interests in the town to continue using the C&PRy.