Time for my update report:
Addditional supports have been added to the docking bridge, including some truly functional ones. For example, the vertical support in the center of the image above connects the steering wheel above to the steering engines below. (Titanic was so large that she needed a dedicated steering engine to move her 101¼-ton rudder. She needed two so that they had a reserve in case one of them failed, and even then there was a way to rig up the compartment to be able to more manually steer the ship in case
both steering engines failed.) This connection is much more direct than the connection between the wheels in the bridge to the steering machinery, and as such it could be used in an emergency to steer the ship. In fact, one of the telegraphs in the ship's bridge could be used to relay steering commands to the docking bridge in this situation!
This is a telephone box. If you have a sharp eye, you might be able to make out another, mostly obfuscated one which was added on the docking bridge in the image above. There was a series of phones in the wheelhouse which were connected to to the crow's nest, this one, and the one on the docking bridge for the crow's nest to report sightings or to hand out docking orders to the folks on the front or back of the ship. There was also a network of phones connected to various crew quarters, restaurants, and so on. It should act as a small indicator of the scale of this vessel that crewmen would be so far away from one another that they had to use these comparatively early telephones to communicate between various positions.
