What is "light at the end of the tunnel"

n. (context idiomatic English) A better situation after long hardship.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel is a double compilation album by The Damned, released in 1987 as a retrospective collection. The same name was also given to a concurrently released video cassette and an approved band biography by Carol Clerk.

The package was marketed as a ‘greatest hits’ collection, but while it includes many of the band’s acknowledged standards, several of the songs were album tracks, while others were B-sides or other rarities. MCA’s corporate muscle secured arguably the definitive Damned retrospective, as it is the only one to unite studio recordings from all of the studio albums the band had released between 1977 and 1986.

MCA issued the Anything album track " In Dulce Decorum" as a single to support the release. The Light at the End of the Tunnel charted for a week at #87 in the UK album charts, the band’s final chart entry to date.

Light at the End of the Tunnel is the gospel-style finale number from the musical Starlight Express. The Company (all railway locomotives and cars) perform the number as a glorification to Steam. The solo lines are taken by Poppa, an old Steam Locomotive, (and Belle the Sleeping Car before she was cut).

The light at the end of the tunnel is a figure of speech that refers to an expectation or hope that circumstances will improve after weathering a difficult situation.

It may also refer to:

• Light at the End of the Tunnel, a 1987 double compilation album by The Damned
• Light at the End of the Tunnel, a 1991 album by B. B. Watson
  • "Light at the End of the Tunnel", title track of the B. B. Watson album
• "Light at the End of the Tunnel" (musical number), the gospel-style finale of the musical Starlight Express
• The Light at the End of the Tunnel Is a Train, 2005 debut studio album by UK indie-electro act Whitey
• "The Light at the End of the Tunnel (Is the Light of an Oncoming Train)", a song by Half Man Half Biscuit on the 2002 album Cammell Laird Social Club
• "The Light at the End of the Tunnel (Was a Train Coming the Other Way)", a song by Richard Hawley on the 2001 album Late Night Final
• The Tunnel at the End of the Light, a 2004 novel by Stefan Petrucha

"Light at the End of the Tunnel" is a debut song recorded by American country music artist B. B. Watson. It was released in August 1991 as the first single and title track from the album Light at the End of the Tunnel. The song reached #23 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart. The song was written by Kim Williams, Mack Williams and Richard Fagan.