the Old Road through Launceston and Okehampton, and on to Basingstoke or Reading. This huge undertaking failed for lack of funds, but it established the presumption that the part of this route west of Exeter, the Central Route, was the natural choice, and that the coastal route was not. The Central Route had the principal advantage of providing the shortest route to London, as the object was to secure the packet traffic. The intermediate terrain was largely unpopulated; the route traversed high altitudes, but the topography was easier than a route following the south coast because of the multiple valleys and river inlets near the coast. Later proposals were put forward, now reduced to joining the London and South Western Railway (L&SWR) near Exeter; the L&SWR was very gradually extending westward, but these proposals all failed for lack of financial support. Nonetheless a Committee to form a Cornwall Railway had been formed and Captain William Moorsom had prepared detailed plans for a route. False starts in Parliament On 29 May 1842 the Government announced that nearly all the packet traffic would be transferred to Southampton. The traffic forecast for the Cornwall Railway had assumed an income of £123,913 out of total income of £160,548. Thus the Central Route, by-passing the south Cornwall population centres, had lost 80% of its potential income at a stroke. At the same time, the Bristol and Exeter Railway had reached Exeter, and the South Devon Railway to connect to Plymouth was definitely planned. A southerly route for the Cornwall Railway, to reach Plymouth, would secure considerable intermediate traffic, and shorten the route that the company would need to construct. In August 1843 W. Tweedy, Chairman of the Cornwall Railway provisional committee, and William H. Bond, its secretary, approached the Great Western Railway (GWR) and found that the GWR was favourable to the idea of a connection between the Cornwall Railway and the South Devon line (with which the GWR was on friendly terms), but only if the Cornwall Railway adopted the southern route. Crossing the Hamoaze Direct assistance was refused, but they were encouraged to promote an independent scheme, and in the autumn of 1844 the prospectus of the Cornwall Railway was produced. The Committee had firmly favoured the southern route, but many interested parties continued to support the northern alignment. Indeed this controversy dogged the company for years, even extending to supporters of the