19 hours ago, Dave John said:

The telegraph poles look great. I also enjoyed reading the "Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society" website , all sorts of wonderful stuff on there. 

 

Interesting to see that the GWR interleaved cross and through arms, the CR tended to have a block of each. Little details like that are appreciated. 

Thanks Dave.  This Getty Images reference has two examples of the interleaved arms - I don't think they are particularly commonplace but where there is an abrupt change in direction of the lines, as at Swan Hill oppposite the signal box, they seem to be the GWR solution. 
https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/great-western-railway-6000-class-king-george-i-steam-news-photo/930165950?phrase=great western railway%20 1930s&adppopup=true. Incidentally, the poles illustrated in the Getty image are definately the "heavy" pole rather than the medium or light:  they are pretty massive - again, I've tried to model that. (Mikkel explained how he embeds Getty Images but I haven't got the trick of it!).

Otherwise, the GWR preferred option for taking lines out of route seems to be the 'T' shaped cross arm (ie a normal cross arm with another added to form a T shape as per the Warwickshire Railways reference above). In regular lines of poles, there is the GWR characteristic arrangement of alternating long

arms / short arms although that's by no means "standard". Complete sets of long arms, usualy with 4 insulators each arm, appear regularly and some with more than 4 insulators. Apart from the interlaced pole, the rest fitted at Swan Hill follow the more characteristic GWR alternating long/short pattern.

Thanks Mikkel - I don't know why the signal box took me so long but apart from staircase handrailing and rooftop ventilator (can't find a drawing of one at the moment), it's about done.

5 hours ago, Mikkel said:

I'm trying to work out what side the backscene will need on, if any?

...good question! I took the picture of the signal box from the "wrong side" of the layout (by guesswork and a bluetooth remote shutter release).  I always conceived of the layout as being properly three dimensional with no viewing side or backscene side - I did think that an "end scene" might work where the viaduct runs into the (Swan) hill: something like this...

but although, when I look at the layout, I see something like that (in my imagination), whether it could be got to work I don't (yet)  know.  I've been making sketches about the two or three buildings which would be low relief on the wall side of the layout and have wandered through building history from an 1830s brick warehouse to a Hennebique type of ferro-cement building (as at Bristol Canon's Marsh) of about 1906: Edwardian, but not as we usually think of it and something the GWR was quite keen on - more of that later though.

2 hours ago, Mikkel said:

it could be a good way to indicate the Edwardian optimism and modernity, which our romantic portrayals of the era tend to leave out

...exactly.  Not everybody's cup of tea but worth looking into.

Tucton bridge, ferro-cement, about 1905/6 (Flickr - commons fair use)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/alwyn_ladell/5431703308/in/photostream/