The efficient operation of the works under such conditions was naturally difficult, though accounts are somewhat conflicting. In spite of strenuous efforts to increase output, long recalled as the Great Push, orders were late on completion and unprofitable when completed. On top of the very heavy initial outlay there had been too lavish expenditure in many directions, and it became necessary to seek financial assistance from America. There was no sign of dividends for the ordinary shareholders of the Company, who were growing restive. In February 1904—his last appearance at an annual general meeting—George Westinghouse was congratulated on "the excellent way in which he had ignored the most ugly facts". American interests were thenceforward represented by the deputy chairman and managing director, the Hon. W. I. Buchanan, who was an ex-Ambassador to Panama, and at the next meeting (December 1904) all his diplomatic experience was needed. The bland statement that "the works was evidently built... for the work that would one day come to it, be that day near or far" met with a shareholder's rejoinder that "if we had known we were to build the works for posterity they would probably never have been built at all".

A call for "a little more common sense and economical management" with other good advice was partly met by cutting down expenses, but it was only constant support from the American Company that enabled work to be carried on. The preference dividend was passed for two years in succession, and at the meeting of December 1905 comment was outspoken: "a huge shed at Manchester . . . . , not there to face the music . . . , a sinking ship . . . , they had been trifled with".

The time had come for quick action, and a month earlier Westinghouse had sent his immediate assistant, Newcomb Carlton, a vice-president of the American Company, to join the Board—one of four managing directors. (Buchanan returned to America in 1907.) Carlton set to with energy and after a preliminary investigation decided that radical changes were necessary both in men and methods. He therefore asked for the assistance of Philip A. Lange, at that time manager of all the American Company's works in East Pittsburgh, Allegheny, Cleveland, and Newark. Accordingly Lange was sent over to spend six weeks at Trafford Park reviewing the position. As a result of his recommendations, he remained at the works in an acting capacity, and in July 1906 he was appointed general manager of works in succession to Loud, who had gone back to America. From this point, though there was yet one further crisis to surmount, the fortunes of the Company began to turn.