Doug,
the second arm is off, I wrote in my first post
This was a junction controlled by a Signalbox at either end, see the right-most Starting signal, the lower blade set for Clear to indicate to the Enginedriver that he is cleared to depart into the Section(after picking up the Tablet) taking the diverging route to the Hawke's Bay line. If the upper blade was off then the route would have been straight to the Wairarapa line.
Unlike the track-circuited colourlight signals that return to Stop as the train leaves the circuit, the Semaphore required the Signalman to reset to Stop the signal via the Leverframe. At Woodville the Signalman also had the Tablet Instruments and he would have been on the ground handing up the Tablet to the Enginedriver, so it would have been a few minutes passed before he returned to the Signalbox to reset the lever.
The Tablet is a Token similar to the Staff system.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/2017 02:34PM by Chris Walker.