 By the early 1860s he had gone back to Germany and embarked on a second career as a railway entrepreneur and industrialist.With good contacts to the Prussian state government and backed by British financiers, he acquired the licence to build the East Prussian Southern Railway line from Tilsit to Insterburg in 1862, followed by the Berlin–Görlitz railway line opened in 1866/67.He also founded the Hanover-Altenbeken Railway and the Halle-Sorau-Guben Railway companies in 1868.