Saving the best until last

Another week is nearly finished and I saved what I hoped was going to be the most interesting task until last. I have had this glass plate negative for a while now but only just got around to a first scan. 

It appears to be in Midland Railway territory, all of the wagons that have markings all have MR on them. I'm not sure if this is a location where the railway serviced industry or if it's the railway under construction. The ballast appears to be clean and uniform in colour. Unfortunately any loco ID is too blurred so I can't begin to say what it is.
I've enlarged two parts of the picture to highlight some of the bits that might get lost in a full size image. I haven't a clue as to the exact location

 The first picture is the whole of the scannable section of the plate. The plate arrived at me with plastic adhesive strips on the vertical sides that obscure some of the image, but I don't think there's anything to help with identifying the picture hidden there.

The second picture is of the central right side of the image. There signal that we can see the back of in the centre of the picture has the letter V painted on it. Does anyone know the significance of this? In the background is some industrial activity. Is it brick making or lime burning I wonder?  There is a horse standing on top of the structure. The loco doesn't appear to be vacuum brake or steam heat fitted.
I'm not sure if it is smoke or steam, or dust being kicked up left of the horse on top of the structure.

This third and final picture is an enlargement of  the left centre of the image and shows a horse enveloped in either smoke or dust. I don't think that this is a fault with the plate.