I have mentioned this on here before, a year or two ago. There was a semaphore distant at the end of the embankment but before the cutting above Cliviger, near Burnley. It was worked from Townley box, just over a mile away. Somewhere along this length was a device mounted on a short post in the cess, comprising a balance weight and some chain pulleys. I never got the opportunity to examine this apparatus closely, being carried along in a train (ex Blackpool - Todmorden) every time. I assumed it was some kind of compensating device for the long pull the distant required. However, one of my workmates' Dad was a signaller, normally at Portsmouth (that's on the Copy Pit line, not on the south coast), and he sometimes he had to work the Townley box. He said that that distant was a pig to pull off in warm weather, there was a repeater in the box but you could never get it to show beyond 'half'. He said engine crews said that the signal suffered from "Brewer's droop". It was important to the engine crews because they were on a falling gradient, and Townley box worked a level crossing which wouldn't be cleared until the last minute, and that distant would indicate a clear run through - or not.
