Once worried investors could get better and safer returns in England, however, money began to flow back across the Atlantic and trouble loomed. The situation looked serious in 1872. By 1873 it looked dire. As the usual financial stringency of the fall harvest season approached in the summer of 1873, Vienna seemed uncomfortably close to New York City. American railroads lacked the revenue to pay both expenses and interest, and without access to fresh capital, they would fall into receivership.
