In August,1843 the contract had been signed and sealed for the building of the terminus of the Bristol and West Railway and work had begun at the Red Cow to build what would eventually become St. David's station. The Western Times of 28th August foretold the future:
"With regard to the undertaking itself, the citizens of Exeter will not, we feel assured, offer any useless or uncalled for opposition to it. Railroads must sooner or later traverse the entire length of the island - "the tight little island" - and the favoured spots at which the Termini must eventually be fixed are the limits of the land. We have formed an exaggerated estimate of the benefit of having the terminus permanently here, as no doubt the Plymouth people do at the prosepect of seeing it there.
"But neither at Exeter nor Plymouth is the railroad likely to terminate. It must go to the far west; and some of us may yet live to see the day when the denizens of Land's End may book themselves at Mr. Botheras's - that was the name of the honest gentlleman who kept the hostelry whose sign is the Last and the First, when we visited the Land's End this time two years - and arrive in London the same day."
Thomas Dibdin, who had died young two years before, wrote "The Tight Little Island" of which the opening stanza:
"Daddy Neptune one day to Freedom did say/'If ever I live upon land,/The spot I should hit on would be little Britain.'/ Says Freedom, 'Why that's my own Island.'/ Oh! what a snug little Island,/ A right little, tight little Island!/ All the globe round, none can be found/ So happy as this little Island.
"This time two years, for This time two years ago, is neat.
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