RailWest

I couldn't see any gate :-( I would agree about padlocking. For yellow shunts please see my notes at www.trainweb.org/railwest/railco/sdjr/yellow.html Based on examples elsewhere on the S&DJR, I doubt they would have made the dummy work for the route into the private siding anyway, the driver would just ignore it or get a hand-signal. I take your point about the location of the Down Home, but I'm not sure that they would be too bothered by having to Block Back? In any case, clearing the dummy would allow the engine to proceed out "as far as the line was clear" towards the DAS, so it might well have passed the DH and they would need to BB anyway. Also, moving the DH in then gives scope to have the Up Advanced within the scenic bit without it looking too cramped - it all depends really on what the distance would be between the two in terms of the length of train.

Maybe, for a start :-) What period are we talking about please for the model? Some random thoughts: provide an Up Advanced Starting move the Down Home closer to the facing point provide a shunt signal FROM loop over release crossover onto plaftorm road? would they have upgraded to a 'yellow' shunt anyway , for that and/or the one by double-slip? Down Distant signal - admittedly off-scene - probably worked originally, but 'fixed' later. if the 'industry' is a private siding, the some sort of boundary gate would be provided, tho' probably not bolted from the SB as the siding does not feed directly onto the main line.

IMHO position of the SB is OK, but more likely to be close to/at/on the end of the platform ramp - for a quiet place like a BLT it might be manned by a porter-signalman, so why make him walk too far from the station office if not necessary? Most tablet exchanges would take place while the train was in the platform anyway. The less distance to the engine release crossover, the more likely to bring that within the limit for working from the SB rather than a local GF. Main criterion really is good visibility and location to control the working of the station.

Well, yes, no or maybe, could be more or less.....it depends upon on the date of original installation and any imagined changes thereafter :-) But an up-to-date track-plan would be a good start, I've lost track (no pun intended!) along the way....

Access to quarries is one thing. Suitability of the stone extracted there is another matter, about which I have no knowledge.

As an aside.... A few years ago now I saw a nice S&DJR-themed layout at an exhibition and my discussion with its builder got around to the subject of the model of the goods shed that he had just built, based on the one at MSN. Very nice it was too, but....it had been built from buff-coloured Plasticard (or similar), so I asked when he was going to paint it. He looked puzzled.... It transpired that he had done all his research from B&W photos and had never been to the Radstock/MSN area. Consequently he had assumed that all the buildings had been made from nice golden-buff Bath stone, rather than the actual dirty-grey Mendip limestone....oh dear :-(

Don't bet on it..... :-)

Do I spy stacked SR ground discs in the background? Really ? Tscch...:-)

I wondered about (signal) sighting as well, but then that could have applied at other places as well.

To be honest, I have no idea, but Midford was probably something of a temporary arrangement and the other two may well have been rebuilt at some date. Indeed it may well be at Masbury that the original station building close to the north end when it was just one platform did not have a canopy anyway - who knows? I believe that the late Maurice Shaw used Wellow as the basis for the station building on his Gauge 1 'Chillow' layout and IIRC it now survives on a G1 model of Midsomer Norton - but I may be wrong, a long time since I saw that.

Would not 7A just become a hand-point as well?

'Section' signal is the one which actually controls entry into the block section ahead. Any other signal in rear of it is not a 'section' signal. What it might actually be called would depend upon the local railway practice...

Ah, that wasn't clear at the beginning. I trust you will include Wimborne :-)

You must be building a very big layout if you can include both the S&DJR and Kilmersdon colliery!

Kilmersdon Colliery of course was not S&DJR connected - would that matter for the OP ?

Are you looking just for the internal colliery sidings plans, or including the main S&DJR running lines as well? What about the new "Pictorical Atlas....." from Strathwood ? https://strathwood.co.uk/products/a-pictorial-atlas-of-the-somerset-dorset-joint-railway

Sorry, missed that :-) But it would give an ideal opportunity to demonstrate a lever which locked another one 'both ways', as well as showing that sometimes the release of one lever is reliant on the prior use of two (or more) other levers.

What about a FPL ?

>>>...the points position must correspond to that signal's aspect..... Not strictly true surely? For example, if a point is set 'normal' then the signal(s) for that route may be 'on' or it may be 'off'.

If that was the Up Starting on the Down platform, then IIRC it was just a straight post.

I've attached a side view of the one which used to exist at Yeovil Pen Mill, although it may well be of course that bracket dolls used a different method than straight posts.

You may like to read pages 86 and 87 of John Owen's "Life on the Railway". Apparently Hopmead Siding was installed to feed coal drops for a new (1930s) adjacent Co-op coal depot. It had little use by 1948 and had been closed "soon afterwards" and had been lifted by 1953. There is a nice Hugh Ballantyne rear view of most of the signal gantry on page 86, but this shows what was clearly a post-MR replacement. Although looking very LMS-ish with UQ arms on tubular posts, be careful that the WR replaced several signals in the Bath Stn/Jcn area in BR days and these used LQ arms and tubular posts also, but with WR-style finials. You may need to look at more photos than I've had time to seek out to see what would be more appropriate for your period.

The attached OS 25" 'snip' shows the Hopmead Siding and IMHO it is quite clear from there that the siding went through the 'arch'. Sadly I can't find a date for that map.....

As drawn in an original LMSR diagram the 'arch' would appear to have straddled the Hopmead Siding (although that had been lifted by the time of the diagram copy). My suspicion is that Richard has drawn the bracket further in rear of crossover 9 than was actually the case, as disc 6 was at its foot. 12 was for the Up Main to Midford and 20 was the Up Main to Weston. 8 was for the Shunting Neck and the presence of the lower distant arm would suggest that it was for moves across 9 onto the Up Main towards Weston, with 6 presumably doing moves ahead towards 13?

Cooke merely records it as being lifted 'by 1960'.