End of the road for Mellor signals?

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boing_uk
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by boing_uk »

A303Paul wrote:Most of the tin lanterns in South London had the heads replaced with Mellors but the pole left intact and painted grey, with the distinctive "policemans helmet" at the top remaining. Pretty well all gone now
Like this one, which is 1963 vintage. The grey paint has flaked off even more since this picture was painted, with the black and white stripes plainly visible.

Or this one, which is 1956 vintage, again a little worse for wear since the streetview photo was taken, although with only vestiges of its old paint scheme visible. The two remaining poles with the nipple tops are the oldest in the Borough, according to the site records. I wonder if they are eligible for oldest in the UK...
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by A303Paul »

boing_uk wrote:
A303Paul wrote:Most of the tin lanterns in South London had the heads replaced with Mellors but the pole left intact and painted grey, with the distinctive "policemans helmet" at the top remaining. Pretty well all gone now
Like this one, which is 1963 vintage. The grey paint has flaked off even more since this picture was painted, with the black and white stripes plainly visible.

Or this one, which is 1956 vintage, again a little worse for wear since the streetview photo was taken, although with only vestiges of its old paint scheme visible. The two remaining poles with the nipple tops are the oldest in the Borough, according to the site records. I wonder if they are eligible for oldest in the UK...
Most Interesting, thanks

One thing I have always found odd about the Northwest is their unique traffic light phase where the lights would change and a green right turn arrow illuminate as well as solid green. A few seconds later the green arrow would vanish and the traffic in the other direction would come roaring towards you. Took me a little while to get used to when I first moved to Salford and a bit naughty that they don't show this in the Highway Code.

Oddly Belgium was still littered with tin lanterns, complete with "policemans helmets" last time I was there.
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by boing_uk »

I dont like the north west system; it is inefficient and inflexible in a lot of situations as it relies on it always coming in and always for a fixed period, although in certain specific circumstances it does have its uses. I have changed a couple of junctions to the "standard" green arrow type and have two more to get rid of. One of the modified junctions I always get hassle from the public over though, because I have had to remove the far-side secondary signal from the opposing phase.

The argument always goes "well I dont know when my lights have gone to red so I dont know when to turn". The correct answer is "it is better if you dont, because if you could see YOUR signal change to red, it does not mean that the car driving toward you at 30mph has also got a red. Much safer for the driver without the signal to rely on their eyes rather than make an incorrect assumption based on a signal which has no relevance to what the opposing traffic is doing".
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by Gareth »

A303Paul wrote:I remember that in London there was a programme to replace all the red/white wait/cross lights with red and green men. The men themselves were like mellors but the housing was rectanglar with no shades.
Yes, those are the housings I was talking about. Can you remember when this program took place? Like I said, I would be surprised if it was after 1970.


A303Paul wrote:Most of the tin lanterns in South London had the heads replaced with Mellors but the pole left intact and painted grey, with the distinctive "policemans helmet" at the top remaining. Pretty well all gone now
Liverpool had tons of these too. They were cracked down upon in the late 90s. With the junciton near my house where I grew up, the engineers came over a couple of days. They'd just switch the signals off and dismantle one, put the old pole in and then put up the same mellor heads from the old post onto the new one. Then they'd move onto the next one. Not sure but there might still be one or two left in the city. I seem to remember that Brighton was a hotbed for grey painted tin lantern poles with mellor heads that seemed rather elderly in themselves. The grey paint was flaking and on one or two seem to be almost gone entirely, exposing the classic stripey paint scheme. It's been a good decade ago since I was last there though.
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by traffic-light-man »

Gareth wrote:
A303Paul wrote:Any idea why they survived so long?, they seemed to be a fairly late tin lantern installation as none of them had STOP in the red lights.
I have no idea why they had no 'STOP' on the red lenses. Every other set I remember had it. They were also unique in that the pedestrian signals had no blackout phase.
I have a feeling they were installed in that envelope between the discontinuation of lettered red lenses and the Mellor lantern being replaced, hence the non-lettered polycarbonate red lenses and the tin red/green man lights. I'm not sure if they discontinued lettered lenses with the Warboys report or not, though.

Interestingly, some of the heads on that site didn't do as well as others, for example, the secondary facing Yew Tree Road was in really bad condition, missing a lot of its paint and being quite corroded, whereas others were in pretty much perfect condition.
Gareth wrote:As for the red/green men, again, from my memories from the late 80s and early 90s, all Liverpool's surviving tin lanterns that I remember had red/green men. They were the standard full-sized tin head with two oblong aspects. The men were seemingly exactly the same size and design as in the mellor lanterns. I always assumed they were original. I mean, the X-way, the pre-cursor to the pelican crossing came out in 1967 complete with the red/green men, so I assumed that junctions were altered at the same time. This would mean tin lanterns made from 1967 through to 1970 would've had red/green men and logically, these newer installations will have naturally been the ones which were the last to be removed. Surely any retrofits in the 70s and 80s would've been mellor ped lanterns.
I think the red/green man came in legally with the Warboys report, did it not? So it would have been after that that a lot of red/green men appeared.

IIRC, The heads were actually a slight bit shorter than the RAG heads, but don't quote me on that.
This picture suggests they were:
Image

These are now GEC Mellors, which themselves are getting on a bit now.
Image

Here's a great picture (sadly only of the back) of a RAG and box sign assembly at Charlotte St in Liverpool, before the area to the right of this became pedestrianised.
Image
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by A303Paul »

Great pics.

They were not the last tin lanterns to survive in the UK though. There is still a 2 aspect set of tin lanterns Here which seem to be lovingly kept in pristine condition. I think they are on a privately owned road though.


The wait/cross lasted in a lot of places until the mellor heads came along. I can remember seeing a set in Mitcham in roughly 1974 (can remember it because the school coach went through a red light and I took great delight in drawing the scene later on at School. I would guess it was late' 70s when the last ones went.

Someone posted a photo of a tin lantern red green man here

From memory the wait cross was a standard head with the middle aspect missing and the lenses the same size as normal lights.


I recall that on tin lanterns if the red lens was damaged the replacement inevitably didnt have stop on it and the red seemed brighter.
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by traffic-light-man »

There's also a rather mutilated RAG here too, with a bell retrofitted to the green aspect.

The old ped heads were indeed 3 aspect with the centre missing, with red and white command lenses for peds. Though I believe there were some in two aspect housings, similar to the IoW example posted, and there were some single aspect ones that simply had the 'cross now' command lens.

I believe the single aspects came about following the introduction of pedestrian signals which made use of 'Don't Cross' and 'Cross Now' commands. Something about not legally being able to tell pedestrians to 'not cross' so they did away with the 'Don't Cross' for a while. Whether this is 100% true or not, I don't know.

They then went to the 'Wait'/'Cross' commands.

Were 'Cross Now'/'Cross' commands ever available in Green?
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by AndyB »

I remember the tins at Knock Road/Upper Newtownards Road had Wait/Cross Now right the way until 1984 when the junction was rebuilt, Hawthornden Way built, and Mellors provided. It has had amendments since, but it is still all Mellors except one left turning movement from Hawthornden Way to Upper Newtownards Road.

I'm sure I remember other junctions with tins having the X-way rectangular ped aspects.

Re the "Don't cross" query, it is not lawful unless specific legislation is made to stop pedestrians from crossing the road. It will be jaywalking in NI if by doing so you cause traffic to slow down or take evasive action, but if nothing is coming it is perfectly lawful to cross.
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by Chris Bertram »

traffic-light-man wrote:The old ped heads were indeed 3 aspect with the centre missing, with red and white command lenses for peds. Though I believe there were some in two aspect housings, similar to the IoW example posted, and there were some single aspect ones that simply had the 'cross now' command lens.

I believe the single aspects came about following the introduction of pedestrian signals which made use of 'Don't Cross' and 'Cross Now' commands. Something about not legally being able to tell pedestrians to 'not cross' so they did away with the 'Don't Cross' for a while. Whether this is 100% true or not, I don't know.

They then went to the 'Wait'/'Cross' commands.

Were 'Cross Now'/'Cross' commands ever available in Green?
Birmingham certainly had "CROSS" in green. This was on SGE signals, where "WAIT" in red was in the top position, the "CROSS" in green in the bottom position with the middle left unused.

However, closer to home, an SGE set had "WAIT" in red in the middle position, "CROSS NOW" in white at the bottom, and the top position unused.

Some signals on the A4123 - SGEs, from memory - just had the white "CROSS NOW" in the bottom position.

Standards? They'd heard of them ...
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by traffic-light-man »

Here's an image from the ATE (Plessey) Catalog, posted on Mikeya's Flickr page. This seems to show the different style of the worded pedestrian lights we've been discussing, but is possibly too early (?) to show a 'CROSS' command.

Image

Here's a single section on an SGE too:

Image
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by Gareth »

traffic-light-man wrote:I have a feeling they were installed in that envelope between the discontinuation of lettered red lenses and the Mellor lantern being replaced, hence the non-lettered polycarbonate red lenses and the tin red/green man lights. I'm not sure if they discontinued lettered lenses with the Warboys report or not, though.
Not sure if that actually matches up. There's no way that the 'STOP' lenses were discontinued as early as the Warboys Report. All the rest of the tin lanterns I remember had 'STOP' on them and I'm sure that most if not all these installations will have been post-1964. Indeed, the box signs on the ones I remember had post-Warboys regulatory signs on them. I'm not even sure the Warboys Report applied to traffic signals. Certainly, where the stripey poles were replaced on standard road signs with monotone grey, the traffic signals kept their stripes for a few more years, though around this time, they'd reduced the white to the bottom half of the pole, leaving the signal head completely black. I'm pretty sure the 'STOP' lenses went in 1969. This was the year that the mellor was meant to be released, along with the pelican crossing. The 'STOP' was to be removed and the poles were to be painted grey to line up with normal road signs. The mellor was delayed for a year or so and so there was a very small window where tins lanterns and SGEs were installed complete with grey poles, no stop lenses and the modern yellow push buttons which are still with us. This would've been a very short inbetween period and I remember no such installations in Liverpool, though perhaps the Calderstones set were installed right on the very death of the old system, meaning that it somehow became a hybrid of old (stripey poles) and new (plain red lenses). That's the best theory I can come up with and would perhaps suggest they were installed in 1969 and thus had an innings of 32 years.

Here's a link to the first pelican crossing. SGES, grey poles and an experimental version of the yellow push button...

https://www.britishpathe.com/video/pelic ... uery/marsh

traffic-light-man wrote:I think the red/green man came in legally with the Warboys report, did it not? So it would have been after that that a lot of red/green men appeared.

IIRC, The heads were actually a slight bit shorter than the RAG heads, but don't quote me on that.
Around the time of the Warboys Report does make sense. Like I said, it was around this time that they stopped painting the stripes all the way to the top, including on the signal heads. Also, the ill-fated Panda Crossing was modified to use red/green men in September 1964, so surely it wasn't long before they spread to junctions. As for the heads, I'm sure what you're seeing is an optical illusion. I believe the red/green man tin heads were just a modified version of the old wait/cross now heads, but with a longer aspect so that they covered most of the amber aspect too.
traffic-light-man wrote:Here's a great picture (sadly only of the back) of a RAG and box sign assembly at Charlotte St in Liverpool, before the area to the right of this became pedestrianised.
Image
It may surprise you but I remember those signals. At least, some of them. Elliot Street from the right of that junction was pedestrianised in the mid-80s, leaving the L-bend that's there today. I have no memory of it pre-pedestrianisation. What's weird though is that those signals weren't removed. They simply took out the ones on Elliot Street, leaving the Great Charlotte Street ones to act as a pedestrian crossing. Even that farside secondary remained, I think complete with no left turn arrow (a movement now no longer possible anyway). It confused me because of this and that they seemed to cycle automatically. I have a feeling they were linked to the signals at the next junction at Lime Street. Around 1990/91 they were replaced with a normal mellor pelican crossing (which in turn was replaced by the existing mellor pelican crossing for reasons unknown). Why they didn't put in a pelican crossing once Elliot Street had been pedestrianised is a mystery.
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by dragonv480 »

A303Paul wrote:Great pics.

They were not the last tin lanterns to survive in the UK though. There is still a 2 aspect set of tin lanterns Here which seem to be lovingly kept in pristine condition. I think they are on a privately owned road though.

I can confirm after my jaunt in London at the Olympics, that the Woolwich Ferry approaches still have their tin lantern dual (horizontal) aspect STOP "wig wags" which I remember so fondly from the 80s.
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by traffic-light-man »

Gareth wrote:
traffic-light-man wrote:I have a feeling they were installed in that envelope between the discontinuation of lettered red lenses and the Mellor lantern being replaced, hence the non-lettered polycarbonate red lenses and the tin red/green man lights. I'm not sure if they discontinued lettered lenses with the Warboys report or not, though.
Not sure if that actually matches up. There's no way that the 'STOP' lenses were discontinued as early as the Warboys Report. All the rest of the tin lanterns I remember had 'STOP' on them and I'm sure that most if not all these installations will have been post-1964. Indeed, the box signs on the ones I remember had post-Warboys regulatory signs on them. I'm not even sure the Warboys Report applied to traffic signals. Certainly, where the stripey poles were replaced on standard road signs with monotone grey, the traffic signals kept their stripes for a few more years, though around this time, they'd reduced the white to the bottom half of the pole, leaving the signal head completely black. I'm pretty sure the 'STOP' lenses went in 1969. This was the year that the mellor was meant to be released, along with the pelican crossing. The 'STOP' was to be removed and the poles were to be painted grey to line up with normal road signs. The mellor was delayed for a year or so and so there was a very small window where tins lanterns and SGEs were installed complete with grey poles, no stop lenses and the modern yellow push buttons which are still with us. This would've been a very short inbetween period and I remember no such installations in Liverpool, though perhaps the Calderstones set were installed right on the very death of the old system, meaning that it somehow became a hybrid of old (stripey poles) and new (plain red lenses). That's the best theory I can come up with and would perhaps suggest they were installed in 1969 and thus had an innings of 32 years.
I agree with this theory, now that you come to mention it. The Yellow backing boards only came in with the all-black heads. I'm guessing that that all happened with the 1964 TSRGD. I know the 1957 TSRGD assigned the 'GO' lettered lens to the bin, however I'm not sure if many signals were ever fitted with them as I think they were optional anyway.

Gareth wrote:
traffic-light-man wrote:I think the red/green man came in legally with the Warboys report, did it not? So it would have been after that that a lot of red/green men appeared.

IIRC, The heads were actually a slight bit shorter than the RAG heads, but don't quote me on that.
As for the heads, I'm sure what you're seeing is an optical illusion. I believe the red/green man tin heads were just a modified version of the old wait/cross now heads, but with a longer aspect so that they covered most of the amber aspect too.
Well, these pictures seem to suggest that they were smaller, taken from a Pathé video. You can see the top of each box doesn't align straight, yet it did at the bottom.

Image

Here's a Tin with the blank red lens, like mine. This seems to be on a grey pole which lines up with the introduction of pelicans (the amber flashes in the video too).

Image
dragonv480 wrote:I can confirm after my jaunt in London at the Olympics, that the Woolwich Ferry approaches still have their tin lantern dual (horizontal) aspect STOP "wig wags" which I remember so fondly from the 80s.
It seems these are actually Forest City heads, which in earlier days used the same lenses as ATE/Plessey.
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by Gareth »

dragonv480 wrote:I can confirm after my jaunt in London at the Olympics, that the Woolwich Ferry approaches still have their tin lantern dual (horizontal) aspect STOP "wig wags" which I remember so fondly from the 80s.
Anyone got any good photos of pre-1969 level crossings? Would love to see some.
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by Gareth »

traffic-light-man wrote:Well, these pictures seem to suggest that they were smaller, taken from a Pathé video. You can see the top of each box doesn't align straight, yet it did at the bottom
Fair enough. It's been years since I last saw one on the road and have never been up close and personal to one, so you may very well be correct.
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by horsetan »

traffic-light-man wrote:.....Here's a single section on an SGE too:

Image
That is the main junction in Golders Green outside the Underground station. The SGEs had pretty much gone already when I was a child, and I only remember Mellor heads installed there.

In the background is the premises of the Abbey Road Building Society, which later became Abbey National. Its descendant, Santander, still occupies exactly the same premises today.
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by Rambo »

Thread bump. I've been looking out for remaining Mellors in my local area. I know of one site in Warrington that has already been replaced recenty. Today i noticed these have started to be replace at Brian Bevan Island, Wilderspool where the A49 / A5060 splits. Does any experts have a rough idea of the make / age of these ?
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by Gareth »

The gyratory system in Liscard is still pretty good for Mellors. At least at the time of the Streetview recording. A couple of junctions are now Helios but the rest are all Mellors with no non-Mellor signal heads that I notice, just one or two poles given away by having the taller terminal cap.

Only a couple of years or so, the whole gyratory was Mellor. It was like being in a timewarp.
Last edited by Gareth on Sat Jul 17, 2021 00:21, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by traffic-light-man »

Rambo wrote: Fri Jul 16, 2021 21:59 Thread bump. I've been looking out for remaining Mellors in my local area. I know of one site in Warrington that has already been replaced recenty. Today i noticed these have started to be replace at Brian Bevan Island, Wilderspool where the A49 / A5060 splits. Does any experts have a rough idea of the make / age of these ?
Those are Page Signals Mellors, I'd hazard a guess as being late 80s. Most of the signalised roundabouts in Warrington seemed to sport Page kit, but I think aside from the one you've photographed there, there's probably only those two arms on the A57/A5061 roundabout left.
Gareth wrote: Fri Jul 16, 2021 22:20 The gyratory system in Liscard is still pretty good for Mellors. At least at the time of the Streetview recording. A couple of junctions are now Helios but the rest are all Mellors with not non-Mellor signal heads that I notice, just one or two poles given away by having the taller terminal cap.

Only a couple of years or so, the whole gyratory was Mellor. It was like being in a timewarp.
There were still a fair few left as of around a fortnight ago, over on the north side. It was pleasing to see!
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by horsetan »

There are still quite a few Mellors remaining in service in parts of North West London
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