Some amazing Streetview finds you all must see!

[Rojojnr]

Whilst on my travels on Google Streetview, I came across these amazing finds across London:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... 3,,2,-2.56

Alpha 3s on side street columns and running mercury in Chalcot Road, Camden. There are a few GEC Z5670 post-tops as well, as well as a rare open mercury lantern down Manley Way, the first turning on the left.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... .09,,2,0.1

Revo Goldcrests (thanks Lampman) on Gresham Road in Hounslow!!!

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... ,,1,-18.93

What look like Thorn Alpha 10s on unsleeved concretes on Lambourne Road, Chigwell.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... 1,,2,-5.18

A couple of extremely rare Eleco post-tops on The Roses, Woodford Green. These used to light my road up until the 1995 PFI, which saw ZX1s installed.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... 7,,0,-1.86

GEC Z5460 post-tops running SOX are used on nearly every back street around Watford Road in Croxley Green!

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... ,,2,-10.26

London Bridge still has some unsleeved concretes with unknown top-entry SOX lanterns knocking about, although some are now unfortunately being replaced (as is the one pictured).

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... 7,,2,-6.09

A mercury lantern (now running SON) in Windmill Walk, Waterloo East.

If anybody else has some amazing views of delicacies, I'd love to see them!

[Gram587]

Whilst on my travels on Google Streetview, I came across these amazing finds across London:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... 3,,2,-2.56

Alpha 3s on side street columns and running mercury in Chalcot Road, Camden. There are a few GEC Z5670 post-tops as well, as well as a rare open mercury lantern down Manley Way, the first turning on the left.

Those open mercury (or possibly even tungsten) lanterns are a fantastic sight to see! I'm surprised they've survived so long! Interesting to see mercury Alpha 3s still in service, there are still some in Nottingham as well.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... .09,,2,0.1

Revo Goldcrests (thanks Lampman) on Gresham Road in Hounslow!!!

Those are nice, like them a lot and they suit the surroundings well too.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... ,,1,-18.93

What look like Thorn Alpha 10s on unsleeved concretes on Lambourne Road, Chigwell.

Very smart, had a look around there from your link and everything was SOX, not a SON lantern in sight. Fantastic!

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... 1,,2,-5.18

A couple of extremely rare Eleco post-tops on The Roses, Woodford Green. These used to light my road up until the 1995 PFI, which saw ZX1s installed.

Eleco Way post tops? They have these on a caravan site near me. Interestingly they were originally on Stanton 9 columns but they recently got reinstalled on brand new metal columns! Last time I looked some of the Stantons were still there but without the lanterns on.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... 7,,0,-1.86

GEC Z5460 post-tops running SOX are used on nearly every back street around Watford Road in Croxley Green!

Fantastic installations! I like those a lot I like this too, what a botch job An XGS103 grafted onto the top of the Stanton 9 column used for the Z5640 originally! I spotted a few of these around that area on Streetview.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... ,,2,-10.26

London Bridge still has some unsleeved concretes with unknown top-entry SOX lanterns knocking about, although some are now unfortunately being replaced (as is the one pictured).

Wow, I'm amazed something like that would still exist in the middle of London, very old-fashioned installation! I've seen those lanterns before, are they GEC?

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... 7,,2,-6.09

A mercury lantern (now running SON) in Windmill Walk, Waterloo East.

That is a Thorn Beta 4. I bet the light off that is very glary! I remember some Beta 4s in Thornton were converted to SON in the early 80s presumably as an experiment and the glare off them was terrible. A fine mercury lantern like the Beta 4 should be left mercury!

If anybody else has some amazing views of delicacies, I'd love to see them!

I will be happy to find some when I have some more time Rojo, Streetview fascinates me too! Birmingham is a good city to do some spotting, it is still full of mercury lanterns. In fact I dragged the little golden man to a completely random part of Birmingham (I don't know anywhere in Birmingham) and the first lantern I saw was a Revo Diadem on a nice column with an AC Ford 7 bracket. The only casual replacements were AC Ford AC850s on replicas of the old columns. What a brilliant city for streetlighting!

Thanks for those images mate, I enjoyed looking at them!

[Rojojnr]

Those open mercury (or possibly even tungsten) lanterns are a fantastic sight to see! I'm surprised they've survived so long! Interesting to see mercury Alpha 3s still in service, there are still some in Nottingham as well.

Yes, these are certainly very rare installations, and to see them in Camden (the south of which is classed as Central London) is certainly amazing! What's also very unusual is that they are installed on side street columns - they must give off a very good cover of light at night, which is probably why they haven't been upgraded en masse to Arcs running SON or MH (that seems to be Camden's staple lantern at the moment, seconded by the ZX, and there is one casual replacement on the left hand side of the street). I did spot some more Alpha 3s (and GEC Z8430s!) somewhere in Lambeth on unsleeved Stanton concretes, but I can't remember where on Streetview I found them now!

Those are nice, like them a lot and they suit the surroundings well too.

Yes, they are certainly something else, aren't they? I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw them, as I've never seen Goldcrests before! Hounslow really is a great area for old relics - there are a lot of old S&Ls and Fabrikat columns with SOX lanterns (mostly MAs and Alpha 4s) on the main roads and pretty much everything you could think of on the side streets! There are also some Alpha 10s ( ) on one main road, but can I remember which street they're on? Not on your nelly!

Very smart, had a look around there from your link and everything was SOX, not a SON lantern in sight. Fantastic!

Epping Forest is an excellent area for lots of unsleeved concrete columns, on both side streets and main roads. MAs are still primarily installed as casual replacements too, which is excellent! The only time an SON lantern is used as a casual replacement is for another SON lantern! So SOX and SON pretty much keep themselves to themselves! Epping Forest also seem to follow an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" principle, so that's very good practice too!

Eleco Way post tops? They have these on a caravan site near me. Interestingly they were originally on Stanton 9 columns but they recently got reinstalled on brand new metal columns! Last time I looked some of the Stantons were still there but without the lanterns on.

Yeah, something like that. I did know the product code at one time, but I've forgotten it now.

Wow, that's fantastic! Well done caravan site! Usually you find that private authorities take more pride in their streetlighting as they don't have to follow the EU regulations and they don't have the money to bulk replace all their old streetlighting. I suppose the caravan site owners could've sleeved the Stantons, but they probably, like councils, were afraid of the health and safety hazards of concrete columns and so they thought they'd better replace them just in case they fell on somebody's parked car!

Fantastic installations! I like those a lot I like this too, what a botch job An XGS103 grafted onto the top of the Stanton 9 column used for the Z5640 originally! I spotted a few of these around that area on Streetview.

Yep, more truly amazing rare installations used in the mass! Why couldn't the council use something more fitting to replace that Z5460, like a Gamma Basique or perhaps an old Gamma 6 they've got in storage from another street? They could even place a mercury lamp inside it! As much as I love the XGS103, it just doesn't look right in post-top form, especially on a street full of ancient lanterns!

Wow, I'm amazed something like that would still exist in the middle of London, very old-fashioned installation! I've seen those lanterns before, are they GEC?

Someone has pictured these on SABRE before - they're in the gallery somewhere! Yes, I think they are GECs, just can't remember the product code.

That is a Thorn Beta 4. I bet the light off that is very glary! I remember some Beta 4s in Thornton were converted to SON in the early 80s presumably as an experiment and the glare off them was terrible. A fine mercury lantern like the Beta 4 should be left mercury!

Yeah, it probably is extremely glary! It certainly looks it from the Streetview view. It being SON is probably the only reason why it hasn't been replaced with a modern installation. I would think, therefore, the conversion to SON took place around when you say - the early 80s - or perhaps Lambeth Council were trying to save a bit of money and converted it to SON being as they were able to! Oh well, at least converting it to SON saved it from replacement!

[Rojojnr]

Sorry to double post, but I've just spotted this on another Streetview expedition:

http://www.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source ... 27595&z=15

The ZX2 on the left is being replaced by a new one next to it on a new column as the column has been knocked, but both are now being replaced by post-top Iridiums on either side. Talk about street furniture clutter!

[Dan123]

Great idea this Rojo mate!

That street certainly looks busy with all that street furniture doesnt it, wonder why they're doing those replacements?

Found this myself:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... ,,1,-10.01

More ZX2's being replaced (not sure on the lantern, somekind of sapphire maybe?) If you go forward a notch it shows the column at a different stage without it's bracket or lantern installed.

[Rojojnr]

Great idea this Rojo mate!

That street certainly looks busy with all that street furniture doesnt it, wonder why they're doing those replacements?

Found this myself:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... ,,1,-10.01

More ZX2's being replaced (not sure on the lantern, somekind of sapphire maybe?) If you go forward a notch it shows the column at a different stage without it's bracket or lantern installed.

Yeah, it certainly is very cluttered and not very well thought through. Well, the ZX2 on the curved bracket is being replaced because it's been crashed into, the ZX2 on the right-angled bracket is replacing it casually, but the whole road is now facing a replacement scheme, and so all the ZX2s are being replaced by the post-top Iridiums. Clearly the council didn't get round to removing the knocked installation - I've no idea how long the casual replacement has been there, but it can't be very long at all. This begs this question, therefore, what was the point of the casual replacement? If the council knew they were going to install post-top Iridiums soon, either leave the replacement until then or install a post-top Iridium in the location for the replacement scheme. Such a waste of taxpayer's money! Mind you, I dare say the new ZX2 will get reused elsewhere.

Yeah, that's a Sapphire 3. Very common with white canopies and MH lamps in my neck of the woods for replacements of SON lanterns, mostly white bowled ZX3s. Is that a Mallatite column it's installed on? It looks very similar to those examples that Wallasey often used to post in the north-west!

The way the bracket and lantern suddenly disappears is creepy! The shot must've been taken on two different days. I've often found some very weird things like that on Streetview, like this:

http://www.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source ... 7,,2,-0.39

Behind the MRL6s you see ZX3s, yes? But if you move forward past the traffic lights, watch what happens! Magic, isn't it?

[Gram587]

Yes, these are certainly very rare installations, and to see them in Camden (the south of which is classed as Central London) is certainly amazing! What's also very unusual is that they are installed on side street columns - they must give off a very good cover of light at night, which is probably why they haven't been upgraded en masse to Arcs running SON or MH (that seems to be Camden's staple lantern at the moment, seconded by the ZX, and there is one casual replacement on the left hand side of the street). I did spot some more Alpha 3s (and GEC Z8430s!) somewhere in Lambeth on unsleeved Stanton concretes, but I can't remember where on Streetview I found them now!

Alpha 3s when they are mercury are very good lanterns, when converted to SON they are still good but they have a lot of lighting overspill which seems to make them, again, very glary. However they are very reliable and solid lanterns which is probably why so many still survive, indeed there are still a few lighting major routes through Blackpool (however these are SON and always have been). GEC Z8430s are very rare these days, I am surprised there is so much old-fashioned lighting in London, I thought it was ZX paradise round there!

Yes, they are certainly something else, aren't they? I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw them, as I've never seen Goldcrests before! Hounslow really is a great area for old relics - there are a lot of old S&Ls and Fabrikat columns with SOX lanterns (mostly MAs and Alpha 4s) on the main roads and pretty much everything you could think of on the side streets! There are also some Alpha 10s ( ) on one main road, but can I remember which street they're on? Not on your nelly!

That's amazing, it's a pity that here in Lancashire the lanterns are all so modern, although some of the columns are very old. I don't think I've ever even seen an Alpha 10 in real life, unless it was years ago before I knew the names of all the lanterns!

Epping Forest is an excellent area for lots of unsleeved concrete columns, on both side streets and main roads. MAs are still primarily installed as casual replacements too, which is excellent! The only time an SON lantern is used as a casual replacement is for another SON lantern! So SOX and SON pretty much keep themselves to themselves! Epping Forest also seem to follow an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" principle, so that's very good practice too!

That's good to hear. SON lighting is way overused up here in Lancs. I think personally that it is unsuitable for residential areas as it is far too glary and perhaps should be superseded now by MH which is much better especially Cosmopolis which is more efficient too. Mercury lighting is the best for side roads though as it has a much calmer glow and doesn't shine through your bedroom curtains as much! SOX is great for motorways and busy roads. I can't really see any advantages of using SON at all. Maybe the long lamp life is a bonus but I think SOX lamps last a long time too and use much less energy.

Wow, that's fantastic! Well done caravan site! Usually you find that private authorities take more pride in their streetlighting as they don't have to follow the EU regulations and they don't have the money to bulk replace all their old streetlighting. I suppose the caravan site owners could've sleeved the Stantons, but they probably, like councils, were afraid of the health and safety hazards of concrete columns and so they thought they'd better replace them just in case they fell on somebody's parked car!

Well in that case it's about time they removed the now-headless concrete columns that remain! It's good they reused the lanterns though and why not, I never understand why councils replace lanterns that are perfectly good when it is only the columns that are defective. Blackpool have reused a lot of Gamma 6s on new columns over the years though, which is good as you can now see Gamma 6s on shiny Nedal and Studio 2 columns which look really good!

Yep, more truly amazing rare installations used in the mass! Why couldn't the council use something more fitting to replace that Z5460, like a Gamma Basique or perhaps an old Gamma 6 they've got in storage from another street? They could even place a mercury lamp inside it! As much as I love the XGS103, it just doesn't look right in post-top form, especially on a street full of ancient lanterns!

It wouldn't have been so bad if they had sleeved the column and then installed the XGS103 side entry although I'm more of a Beta 5 man myself Like you say though really they should have replaced the Z5640 with another post-top lantern of some sort which would have looked much better. Still, I like these quirky botch jobs they do make me laugh if nothing else.

Yeah, it probably is extremely glary! It certainly looks it from the Streetview view. It being SON is probably the only reason why it hasn't been replaced with a modern installation. I would think, therefore, the conversion to SON took place around when you say - the early 80s - or perhaps Lambeth Council were trying to save a bit of money and converted it to SON being as they were able to! Oh well, at least converting it to SON saved it from replacement!

It was probably done a relatively long time ago as lanterns like this are rarely converted these days due to their old-fashioned optical control system, or lack thereof. Beta 4s used to be the staple mercury lantern in my area at one time so I know them well, they were good little mercury lanterns in their day and I miss them actually, sad as it sounds

Sorry to double post, but I've just spotted this on another Streetview expedition:

http://www.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source ... 27595&z=15

The ZX2 on the left is being replaced by a new one next to it on a new column as the column has been knocked, but both are now being replaced by post-top Iridiums on either side. Talk about street furniture clutter!

As you say, that is ridiculous! Why do councils waste money like this? In my area the newer ZX2 wouldn't have been replaced or if it had then it would just be the lantern that was replaced not the whole column. Does it really matter if every installation on the street looks the same? Crazy!

The way the bracket and lantern suddenly disappears is creepy! The shot must've been taken on two different days. I've often found some very weird things like that on Streetview, like this:

http://www.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source ... 7,,2,-0.39

Behind the MRL6s you see ZX3s, yes? But if you move forward past the traffic lights, watch what happens! Magic, isn't it?

How strange, the ZX3s become Sapphires right before your eyes! I wonder how far apart these Google Streetviews were taken? I saw the Google car going around Blackpool a couple of months ago but it's still not appeared on Streetview yet which is a bit of a shame.

[Dan123]

I saw the Google car going around Blackpool a couple of months ago but it's still not appeared on Streetview yet which is a bit of a shame.

So we'll soon see images of Blackpool yeah? That'll be cool! Were you walking down the pavement as you saw the car? You might end up being in one of the shots! . I read recently that the car was going round stonehenge way.

Yeah, it certainly is very cluttered and not very well thought through. Well, the ZX2 on the curved bracket is being replaced because it's been crashed into, the ZX2 on the right-angled bracket is replacing it casually, but the whole road is now facing a replacement scheme, and so all the ZX2s are being replaced by the post-top Iridiums. Clearly the council didn't get round to removing the knocked installation - I've no idea how long the casual replacement has been there, but it can't be very long at all. This begs this question, therefore, what was the point of the casual replacement? If the council knew they were going to install post-top Iridiums soon, either leave the replacement until then or install a post-top Iridium in the location for the replacement scheme. Such a waste of taxpayer's money! Mind you, I dare say the new ZX2 will get reused elsewhere.

Yeah, that's a Sapphire 3. Very common with white canopies and MH lamps in my neck of the woods for replacements of SON lanterns, mostly white bowled ZX3s. Is that a Mallatite column it's installed on? It looks very similar to those examples that Wallasey often used to post in the north-west!

The way the bracket and lantern suddenly disappears is creepy! The shot must've been taken on two different days. I've often found some very weird things like that on Streetview, like this:

http://www.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source ... 7,,2,-0.39

Behind the MRL6s you see ZX3s, yes? But if you move forward past the traffic lights, watch what happens! Magic, isn't it?

Wow yeah that's a great spot that! It's funny how it shows up different images of certain roads, bet there's loads more out there for us to spot!

Why do you think those post top columns were suddenly introduced to replace the ZX lanterns? Seems a bit strange to replace 1 set of SON lanterns for another set?

Check this out:

http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=UTF8&ll=51 ... 9,,1,-1.97

This is a great capture from the streetview camera! Looks like a very curvy Cu Column with an old post top Eleco lantern. All the SOX lanterns (and some casual SON replacements) on Carterhatch Lane are being replaced with new columns with Arc lanterns.

There's various different lanterns being replaced from Eleco's to SGS203's and possibly Z9454's.

[boing_uk]

[indeed there are still a few lighting major routes through Blackpool

Not for long though, now that the PFI has been given the go-ahead. Say goodbye to all the treasures.

[scynthius726]

[indeed there are still a few lighting major routes through Blackpool

Not for long though, now that the PFI has been given the go-ahead. Say goodbye to all the treasures.

The Blackpool PFI isn't bad news for all of us

*awaits criticism of his handiwork*

[Rojojnr]

Gram587:

Alpha 3s when they are mercury are very good lanterns, when converted to SON they are still good but they have a lot of lighting overspill which seems to make them, again, very glary. However they are very reliable and solid lanterns which is probably why so many still survive, indeed there are still a few lighting major routes through Blackpool (however these are SON and always have been). GEC Z8430s are very rare these days, I am surprised there is so much old-fashioned lighting in London, I thought it was ZX paradise round there!

Yes, I certainly agree that Alpha 3s are great when they're mercury! It looks as if Camden agree with us too, as that's probably why they've kept them. Just a shame they don't use mercury on any other side streets - most other side streets of these are lit with ZXs/Arcs/Iridiums.

That's amazing, it's a pity that here in Lancashire the lanterns are all so modern, although some of the columns are very old. I don't think I've ever even seen an Alpha 10 in real life, unless it was years ago before I knew the names of all the lanterns!

That's good to hear. SON lighting is way overused up here in Lancs. I think personally that it is unsuitable for residential areas as it is far too glary and perhaps should be superseded now by MH which is much better especially Cosmopolis which is more efficient too. Mercury lighting is the best for side roads though as it has a much calmer glow and doesn't shine through your bedroom curtains as much! SOX is great for motorways and busy roads. I can't really see any advantages of using SON at all. Maybe the long lamp life is a bonus but I think SOX lamps last a long time too and use much less energy.

Yeah, Lancashire are going very over the top with SON, aren't they? IIRC, the only SOX lanterns I've seen you guys snap in Blackpool are those MA50s on concretes in that industrial road, but even most of them have been replaced with MRL6s and Vectras! Yes, metal halide is an excellent lighting source - it provides a true-to-life, rich cover of light and on paper is more efficient than SON. In fact, Redbridge (the borough in which I live) is replacing some of its SON (mostly ZXs) over to Sapphires and Milewides or fancy MH lanterns in busy/dangerous areas. We've had Metronomis Oslos installed in Ilford Town Centre, DW Windsor Stratums on Cranbrook Road, Urbis Frogners (which replaced SON Alpha 3s!) on Wanstead High Road and now Urbis Furyos are being trialled here! There are now some unknown GEC Turtle-like lanterns and a few Iridiums (on gold columns!) making an appearance now! What will Redbridge install next? There is even some SOX in the borough from the 70s through to the present (mostly Z9554s and MAs) which haven't hardly been replaced at all (only around shops and busy junctions) and is still going strong today!

Well in that case it's about time they removed the now-headless concrete columns that remain! It's good they reused the lanterns though and why not, I never understand why councils replace lanterns that are perfectly good when it is only the columns that are defective. Blackpool have reused a lot of Gamma 6s on new columns over the years though, which is good as you can now see Gamma 6s on shiny Nedal and Studio 2 columns which look really good!

That's great news! Redbridge normally reuse lanterns too - in 2006, the council were trialling those new columns with ad boards installed, and in every case, the lanterns (ZX3s) were reused. I don't think the council were that keen on those columns though, as I haven't seen any more be installed since then, unless they had to budget and have a certain number of columns installed or something. But I do remember one new column as such never having an ad board installed at all and being replaced with a new column and ZX3 lantern. I don't remember seeing the ZX3 installed on it (transferred from the old column) ever working at night either. Perhaps the column had a faulty power supply that was irreparable or something?

It wouldn't have been so bad if they had sleeved the column and then installed the XGS103 side entry although I'm more of a Beta 5 man myself Like you say though really they should have replaced the Z5640 with another post-top lantern of some sort which would have looked much better. Still, I like these quirky botch jobs they do make me laugh if nothing else.

Yeah, sleeving with a side entry would certainly have been better. I haven't really got any preference with SOX lanterns - just as long as SOX is still going strong and being installed as casual replacements (at least) I'm happy!

It was probably done a relatively long time ago as lanterns like this are rarely converted these days due to their old-fashioned optical control system, or lack thereof. Beta 4s used to be the staple mercury lantern in my area at one time so I know them well, they were good little mercury lanterns in their day and I miss them actually, sad as it sounds

Yeah, it certainly seems so. Near me in Ilford Town Centre are some Philips MA30s (yippee!) which were converted to SON from mercury probably in the late 80s/early 90s. But they're not being converted to SON in house any more - the council just casually replaces them now with specialist SON lanterns like ZX3s and Sapphires now. Or perhaps they're just replacing the MA30s because they've ceased production and so it's not worth them trying to get spare parts for them?

Gram587:

As you say, that is ridiculous! Why do councils waste money like this? In my area the newer ZX2 wouldn't have been replaced or if it had then it would just be the lantern that was replaced not the whole column. Does it really matter if every installation on the street looks the same? Crazy!

Dan123:

Why do you think those post top columns were suddenly introduced to replace the ZX lanterns? Seems a bit strange to replace 1 set of SON lanterns for another set?

Perhaps the Iridiums run MH or Cosmopolis instead of SON? If that's the case, the uniformity of the lighting would be important as post-tops and side entries have different lighting levels. Post-tops tend to shed more light around the column height, whilst side entries tend to cast more light onto the road. So perhaps the council are doing it more for the consistency of the light output rather than to create more aesthetic differentiation (although I am sure the new ZX2 could've been installed post-top onto a new column and fitted with Cosmopolis), but as I said earlier, I'm sure it will get reused somewhere else. To be honest, I think post-top lanterns on main road size columns are unsuitable for residential areas. Lanterns like the Z5670 series, Gamma 6s, Eleco PTs and Z5460s, however, are perfectly fine for side streets, as you just need a sort of beacon to guide you, but on main roads, side entries are essential so you can see road markings, road signs, bus stops etc clearly.

Check this out:

http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=UTF8&ll=51 ... 9,,1,-1.97

This is a great capture from the streetview camera! Looks like a very curvy Cu Column with an old post top Eleco lantern. All the SOX lanterns (and some casual SON replacements) on Carterhatch Lane are being replaced with new columns with Arc lanterns.

Dan123:

There's various different lanterns being replaced from Eleco's to SGS203's and possibly Z9454's.

Wow, that's an excellent installation! Enfield is another great place for unsleeved concretes like this, but according to Alex, their days are pretty much numbered (like the one you pictured) due to the PFI sweeping in, and those Arcs are I think the staple installation of it.

Yeah, I think that lantern must be either a GEC or Eleco. I remember both those companies made quite a few top-entry SOX lanterns in their time.

Oh, and here's another couple of great finds I forgot to post:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/mpl?layer ... tm_term=rd

Loads and loads of GEC Bricks on the A40 going through Hillingdon! I think these are here because of the nearby Northolt air field and so cut-off lanterns are necessary to avoid fooling the pilots! They start right where I've placed the yellow man and end between Hillingdon underground station and the red letter B on the map.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... ,,1,-12.22

Hundreds of Z9564s ( ) on the A236 Roman Way in Croydon. This view is very similar to the one that James (Lampman) pictures on the A27 on his website. There are some Z9554s and MAs as casual replacements too! I find it strange how Z9554s have been used as replacements, as I thought they were older than the Z9564s judging by the product code. Obviously not!

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... ,,0,-13.48

If you thought Kensington and Chelsea was a completely SOX free zone, you are very wrong! MA50s and later some Alpha 4s light the A4 W Cromwell Road from West Kensington through to the Hammersmith Flyover. Unfortunately, there are some SGS203s as casual replacements, but it's all mostly still SOX lit!

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... ,,2,-18.38

Saving the best till last, there's a whole road of what I think are Thorn Alpha 10s on Sutton Lane S in Turnham Green in Hounslow. There looks to be only one casual replacement and that's an (very dirty) MA90. Just a shame that they're so shrouded in the trees! When you reach Wellesley Road at the end, follow Sutton Lane and you'll see some Eleco GR500/1s too - these are very common in Ealing, but are gradually declining.

I also have another couple of surprises in mind, but can't remember for the life of me where on Streetview I found them! I'll keep looking and post them up here if I find them!

[Brenley Corner]

Some of my most favourite modern lanterns are about 40 miles from where I live (over the Channel in Calais!!)

LINK or LINK

Now, why can't our installations be as imaginative as that?

Tony

[Rojojnr]

Some of my most favourite modern lanterns are about 40 miles from where I live (over the Channel in Calais!!)

LINK or LINK

Now, why can't our installations be as imaginative as that?

Tony

Well, don't these come close to the first ones?

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1026244

Wow, I love the second one! It reminds me rather much of an iris! Somebody go and install some Urbis Sepales on that and then it'll look really botanical! That'll be a Photoshop job for someone!

[Gram587]

So we'll soon see images of Blackpool yeah? That'll be cool! Were you walking down the pavement as you saw the car? You might end up being in one of the shots! . I read recently that the car was going round stonehenge way.

Hopefully, yes! I was standing at a tram stop on the Prom when I saw the car so you never know I might get in the photo and I can make a right fuss if they don't blur my face out (not really, I'm not that sad! )

Check this out:

http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=UTF8&ll=51 ... 9,,1,-1.97

This is a great capture from the streetview camera! Looks like a very curvy Cu Column with an old post top Eleco lantern. All the SOX lanterns (and some casual SON replacements) on Carterhatch Lane are being replaced with new columns with Arc lanterns.

There's various different lanterns being replaced from Eleco's to SGS203's and possibly Z9454's.

A CU Avenue column with Arc 3D(?) bracket. The lantern pictured here is an Eleco GR101. Shame this is being replaced, it's done well to survive all these years and probably had an open SO lantern fitted originally.

Not for long though, now that the PFI has been given the go-ahead. Say goodbye to all the treasures.

The Blackpool PFI isn't bad news for all of us

*awaits criticism of his handiwork*

It will be sad to see the old stuff go. Hey Scynthius, if you're involved in this PFI somehow then save us an Alpha 3, an Alpha 8 (MKII version please), a Gamma 6 and that P222 from Vicarage Lane. Thank you!

Yeah, Lancashire are going very over the top with SON, aren't they? IIRC, the only SOX lanterns I've seen you guys snap in Blackpool are those MA50s on concretes in that industrial road, but even most of them have been replaced with MRL6s and Vectras!

There are a grand total of four, yes, just four (at the last count) SOX lanterns in Blackpool. Of these, three are gear-in-lantern MA50s and one is a GEC Z9554 At least it sounds like there is a good mixture of lighting in Redbridge and a nice mixture of old and new as well which is something!

That's great news! Redbridge normally reuse lanterns too - in 2006, the council were trialling those new columns with ad boards installed, and in every case, the lanterns (ZX3s) were reused. I don't think the council were that keen on those columns though, as I haven't seen any more be installed since then, unless they had to budget and have a certain number of columns installed or something. But I do remember one new column as such never having an ad board installed at all and being replaced with a new column and ZX3 lantern. I don't remember seeing the ZX3 installed on it (transferred from the old column) ever working at night either. Perhaps the column had a faulty power supply that was irreparable or something?

Councils should definitely reuse lanterns when they are modern ones like ZX3s, it's false economy not to! There have been some strange goings-on of late in Blackpool where in two cases lovely shiny new Nedal columns have been installed fitted with post-top Vectras. Before the power supply has been connected the Vectras have been replaced, in one case, by DW Windsor Stratums and in the other case by (yuck) Philips Iridiums! I hope those Vectras will be reused and wonder why they were replaced unless they are part of a faulty batch and have been recalled by WRTL?

Yeah, sleeving with a side entry would certainly have been better. I haven't really got any preference with SOX lanterns - just as long as SOX is still going strong and being installed as casual replacements (at least) I'm happy!

I like SOX lanterns too but I have always had a soft spot for the Beta 5 which represents ,to my mind, working class Britain as you always saw it installed on terraced streets or around rather grimy industrial areas (especially in the North and Midlands) and it somehow suited the scenery well and I mean that in a nice way! At least the XGS103/4 is still being produced though and along with the MA we must praise Philips for still keeping SOX lighting going in this country now that Thorn have given up on the market.

Yeah, it certainly seems so. Near me in Ilford Town Centre are some Philips MA30s (yippee!) which were converted to SON from mercury probably in the late 80s/early 90s. But they're not being converted to SON in house any more - the council just casually replaces them now with specialist SON lanterns like ZX3s and Sapphires now. Or perhaps they're just replacing the MA30s because they've ceased production and so it's not worth them trying to get spare parts for them?

I doubt if spare parts for MA30s are widely available at all, I don't think they've been in production since the mid 80s! We have some MA30s in Blackpool which were originally owned by the council but now they are owned by Network Rail as they light the approach to the train station. They are SON and have been ever since I can remember although as the train station was built in 1974, I don't know if they were SON originally because SON lighting was around at that time but it was quite rare and probably expensive then.

Perhaps the Iridiums run MH or Cosmopolis instead of SON? If that's the case, the uniformity of the lighting would be important as post-tops and side entries have different lighting levels. Post-tops tend to shed more light around the column height, whilst side entries tend to cast more light onto the road. So perhaps the council are doing it more for the consistency of the light output rather than to create more aesthetic differentiation (although I am sure the new ZX2 could've been installed post-top onto a new column and fitted with Cosmopolis), but as I said earlier, I'm sure it will get reused somewhere else. To be honest, I think post-top lanterns on main road size columns are unsuitable for residential areas. Lanterns like the Z5670 series, Gamma 6s, Eleco PTs and Z5460s, however, are perfectly fine for side streets, as you just need a sort of beacon to guide you, but on main roads, side entries are essential so you can see road markings, road signs, bus stops etc clearly.

I quite agree! Post-top lighting using side entry lanterns is ugly and ineffective! The side road post-top lanterns you mention were great as, like you say, they acted as a beacon and lit the surrounding homes and gardens too making people feel safer! (I know True Yorkie agrees with me about this too ). On main roads at roundabouts and junctions they used to use post-top lighting like GEC ZD Flying Saucers and Phosco P222s but now they use side-entry lanterns on double, triple or even quadruple brackets! Yet the lanterns along main roads are now often post-top whereas back then they were side-entry! How strange that lighting has reversed like this!

Oh, and here's another couple of great finds I forgot to post:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/mpl?layer ... tm_term=rd

Loads and loads of GEC Bricks on the A40 going through Hillingdon! I think these are here because of the nearby Northolt air field and so cut-off lanterns are necessary to avoid fooling the pilots! They start right where I've placed the yellow man and end between Hillingdon underground station and the red letter B on the map.

I like the Bricks on the really short columns especially although some have been replaced by Rivieras and Sapphires and I spotted a couple of ZX2s. Also, I like the Bricks on the columns with the wavy-looking brackets further east.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... ,,1,-12.22

Hundreds of Z9564s ( ) on the A236 Roman Way in Croydon. This view is very similar to the one that James (Lampman) pictures on the A27 on his website. There are some Z9554s and MAs as casual replacements too! I find it strange how Z9554s have been used as replacements, as I thought they were older than the Z9564s judging by the product code. Obviously not!

The Z9564 was the 180w version of the Z9554 therefore Z9554s should not have been used as casual replacements as they are only 135w. The Z9554 actually outlived the Z9564 in fact and was most recently marketed by WRTL as the MRL135 until production of it was ceased about 2005/6.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... ,,0,-13.48

If you thought Kensington and Chelsea was a completely SOX free zone, you are very wrong! MA50s and later some Alpha 4s light the A4 W Cromwell Road from West Kensington through to the Hammersmith Flyover. Unfortunately, there are some SGS203s as casual replacements, but it's all mostly still SOX lit!

Excellent, and of course a road like this should be SOX-lit to save energy as colour rendering is not important on a road like this and is much better than using glary 250w SON lanterns!

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... ,,2,-18.38

Saving the best till last, there's a whole road of what I think are Thorn Alpha 10s on Sutton Lane S in Turnham Green in Hounslow. There looks to be only one casual replacement and that's an (very dirty) MA90. Just a shame that they're so shrouded in the trees! When you reach Wellesley Road at the end, follow Sutton Lane and you'll see some Eleco GR500/1s too - these are very common in Ealing, but are gradually declining.

Yep, they look like Alpha 10s to me. Nice find! Those GR500s are smart too. I like the ones with the red (SELC?) photocells too, the lantern and cell compliment each other well.

Some of my most favourite modern lanterns are about 40 miles from where I live (over the Channel in Calais!!)

LINK or LINK

Now, why can't our installations be as imaginative as that?

Tony

Well, don't these come close to the first ones?

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1026244

Wow, I love the second one! It reminds me rather much of an iris! Somebody go and install some Urbis Sepales on that and then it'll look really botanical! That'll be a Photoshop job for someone!

Those columns are great aren't they? Very imposing, especially the second ones of Tony's. Those columns on the Sir Steve Redgrave Bridge really stand out, indeed that was no doubt the intention. Strange choice of lanterns though, installing Vectras on them! Don't get me wrong I like Vectras but in this context they look odd! Urbis Sepales or Thylias would have been ideal there.

[Rojojnr]

Gram587:

A CU Avenue column with Arc 3D(?) bracket. The lantern pictured here is an Eleco GR101. Shame this is being replaced, it's done well to survive all these years and probably had an open SO lantern fitted originally.

I think you mean a GR110 - the GR101 is a side entry cut-off version of the GR100. (this:)

http://sunilprasannan612.fotopic.net/p24546654.html

Amazing 70s columns in that photo by the way!

That isn't the only GR110 in London either. Check these out in Castelnau (very French-sounding name) in Richmond:

http://www.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source ... ,,2,-11.06

Mike Barford has got these on his website as survivor #12b, but I thought as this thread is about Streetview I thought I'd use that instead. I'm amazed that these are still standing and haven't been entirely replaced with MAs, as has looks to have happened further down the road (I'm presuming the GR110s were here before the MAs all the way along the road). Sadly, the casual replacement MA90 that Mike has pictured on his websiteamong the GR110s looks have to now lost its bowl!

By the way, what are those two Victorian-looking post-top lanterns just before Hammersmith Bridge (a few clicks backward from the GR110 snapshot). They look amazing!

Gram587:

At least it sounds like there is a good mixture of lighting in Redbridge and a nice mixture of old and new as well which is something!

Yeah, Redbridge are pretty sensible with their lighting really. In the 1995 PFI, only installations before the 70s were replaced (the staple installations were GR150s on S&L columns and a mixture of Eleco PTs and GR550s on side roads - they were around 30 years old at the time, so I suppose they were getting a bit worse for wear). I presume this was because of the demise of Eleco and so the council couldn't get spare parts for them anymore, as well as the safety issues surrounding S&L columns because of how easily they rust. I don't remember any installations being particularly rusty, but I suppose the council replaced them anyway before they became too much of a concern. The GRs that do remain in the borough probably date to the 70s and 80s, and they're not installed on S&Ls, so I'm guessing that that's why they weren't replaced in the PFI. I'm certainly very glad they are still standing indeed - they're a fantastic sight to see! SOX is also still being installed here as casual replacements - I've seen Alpha 4s and MAs crop up many a time over the years to replace older SOX lanterns. As I said before, it's only around shops or in dangerous areas that SOX is replaced. Otherwise, it's left completely alone!

Now, Redbridge are upgrading some of their SON to MH around shops and busy/dangerous areas, so to be honest Redbridge have been pretty sensible with using SON. The only thing I'm disappointed with is that they were never great lovers of concrete columns (they were only used up to the 50s) mercury or CFL, but other than that, Redbridge are pretty good in terms of streetlighting.

Councils should definitely reuse lanterns when they are modern ones like ZX3s, it's false economy not to! There have been some strange goings-on of late in Blackpool where in two cases lovely shiny new Nedal columns have been installed fitted with post-top Vectras. Before the power supply has been connected the Vectras have been replaced, in one case, by DW Windsor Stratums and in the other case by (yuck) Philips Iridiums! I hope those Vectras will be reused and wonder why they were replaced unless they are part of a faulty batch and have been recalled by WRTL?

Yeah, that does sound rather strange. Perhaps the Stratums and Iridiums run MH or Cosmopolis instead of SON, and so the council probably thought that it might be safer to use MH instead of SON, so they may well have changed their minds after the Vectras were installed. But then again, surely the Vectras could've been fitted with MH lamps instead? I think you might be right though - it sounds to me like there was a product recall by WRTL.

Something strange like that happened at a new zebra crossing just round the corner from where I live that was installed in March last year. For the first 2 weeks or so, plain SGS203s without any zebra crossing optics were installed, and then about a week later, they were replaced with two ZX3 Zebras (one of which runs MH, and the other SON)! Perhaps the SGS203s, being as they weren't fitted with zebra crossing optics, were only temporary whilst the council were waiting for the ZX3 Zebras to be delivered from Urbis. I just only hope the SGS203s were reused elsewhere!

I like SOX lanterns too but I have always had a soft spot for the Beta 5 which represents ,to my mind, working class Britain as you always saw it installed on terraced streets or around rather grimy industrial areas (especially in the North and Midlands) and it somehow suited the scenery well and I mean that in a nice way! At least the XGS103/4 is still being produced though and along with the MA we must praise Philips for still keeping SOX lighting going in this country now that Thorn have given up on the market.

yeah, I see what you mean about the Beta 5 representing the working class, especially in the north and midlands!

Yeah, I think that Philips have been instrumental in prolonging SOX! Other streetlighting companies have just completely given up the ghost with SOX, but Philips never seem to give up with anything! Although I can never make out why they ceased the manufacture of the SGS204 - its older sister the SGS203 is still very much in production, but why not the SGS204? I mean, it does get used a lot on motorways, so it's not unpopular, but I do admit, it wasn't the prettiest or streamlined of lanterns.

I doubt if spare parts for MA30s are widely available at all, I don't think they've been in production since the mid 80s! We have some MA30s in Blackpool which were originally owned by the council but now they are owned by Network Rail as they light the approach to the train station. They are SON and have been ever since I can remember although as the train station was built in 1974, I don't know if they were SON originally because SON lighting was around at that time but it was quite rare and probably expensive then.

What a coincidence! The MA30s in Ilford are right by the Bombardier Ilford railway depot on the GER (Great Eastern Railway, that runs from Liverpool Street to East Anglia). I wonder if those are Network Rail owned as well? They light the roundabout right by one of the gated entrances and the concrete flyover (Winston Way) that goes over the railway. However, I doubt it as two double bracket installations have been replaced with ZX3s and Sapphires.

I quite agree! Post-top lighting using side entry lanterns is ugly and ineffective! The side road post-top lanterns you mention were great as, like you say, they acted as a beacon and lit the surrounding homes and gardens too making people feel safer! (I know True Yorkie agrees with me about this too ). On main roads at roundabouts and junctions they used to use post-top lighting like GEC ZD Flying Saucers and Phosco P222s but now they use side-entry lanterns on double, triple or even quadruple brackets! Yet the lanterns along main roads are now often post-top whereas back then they were side-entry! How strange that lighting has reversed like this!

Yeah, it's especially weird as post-top lanterns tend to spread light around the column height rather than directly onto the road. You'd think that with this craze of light pollution and saving energy it would've been the other way round, but instead it's going from well directed to poorly directed light! Roundabouts are funny things though - it's quite hard to determine whether to light the middle of the roundabout so motorists can see it's there (in other words, have post-top lanterns acting as beacons) or to light the roads around the roundabout (by either installing triple/quadruple brackets in the middle of the roundabout or have several single bracket installations around the edges) to increase safety and reduce chances of accidents. To be honest though, I think installing triple/quadruple brackets is the wrong thing to do, as the lanterns aren't aimed enough at the road and so don't light the road around the roundabout as effectively as they should, so I feel that installing several single brackets around the edge is much more effective! So I suppose the only effective way to consider all aspects is to install high-mast lighting on roundabouts, but that would be overkill, both in terms of light and energy!

What I find particularly ironic is that councils say SOX lanterns cause light pollution, but they're side entry (in the main) so are in theory better directed towards the road, but yet a lot of SON lanterns (semi cut-off or full cut-off) can be installed post-top, so the light output of so-called "better directed" lanterns is being aimed at the top of the column rather than the road. Councils just can't seem to make up their minds! But in all fairness, I suppose it just depends on how well educated/thick your council are!

The Z9564 was the 180w version of the Z9554 therefore Z9554s should not have been used as casual replacements as they are only 135w. The Z9554 actually outlived the Z9564 in fact and was most recently marketed by WRTL as the MRL135 until production of it was ceased about 2005/6.

Hmm, the casual replacements obviously weren't very well thought through there then! The highway authority should have just stuck with using MA60s to keep lighting levels consistent. But surely if Z9564s are 180w, they can take 135w lamps? That's of course assuming that those lanterns are Z9564s and not deep-bowled Z9554s.

Those columns are great aren't they? Very imposing, especially the second ones of Tony's. Those columns on the Sir Steve Redgrave Bridge really stand out, indeed that was no doubt the intention. Strange choice of lanterns though, installing Vectras on them! Don't get me wrong I like Vectras but in this context they look odd! Urbis Sepales or Thylias would have been ideal there.

Yeah, that's weird how Newham/Greenwich council chose Vectras, as Vectras are very rare in East London (although they are used a fair bit in West London, especially by Hillingdon council). Perhaps the approach was to look continental rather than try to be flash (pun unintended), but you're right, Sepales or Thylias would look excellent! If Sepales were used, it'll look just like the bridge on Hayling Island that Lampman has pictured on his website.

[Gram587]

Rojojnr:

Dan123:

A CU Avenue column with Arc 3D(?) bracket. The lantern pictured here is an Eleco GR101. Shame this is being replaced, it's done well to survive all these years and probably had an open SO lantern fitted originally.

I think you mean a GR110 - the GR101 is a side entry cut-off version of the GR100. (this:)

http://sunilprasannan612.fotopic.net/p24546654.html

Amazing 70s columns in that photo by the way!

I must defend Dan123, that quote about Eleco GR101s was made by me, not him! I always thought the GR101 was the top-entry version of the GR100 but it seems you're right, the GR101 is the cut-off version although to complicate matters further I think the GRs in that photo are GR151s, the bigger version! Eleco GR110s eh? Not familiar with that product code but then top-entry GRs are quite rare aren't they?

That isn't the only GR110 in London either. Check these out in Castelnau (very French-sounding name) in Richmond:

http://www.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source ... ,,2,-11.06

Mike Barford has got these on his website as survivor #12b, but I thought as this thread is about Streetview I thought I'd use that instead. I'm amazed that these are still standing and haven't been entirely replaced with MAs, as has looks to have happened further down the road (I'm presuming the GR110s were here before the MAs all the way along the road). Sadly, the casual replacement MA90 that Mike has pictured on his websiteamong the GR110s looks have to now lost its bowl!

Wow, those are amazing! What gorgeous columns! I wonder if those have survived because that's a conservation area? I must say, I keep finding myself surprised at the old lighting still extant in well-known parts of London!

By the way, what are those two Victorian-looking post-top lanterns just before Hammersmith Bridge (a few clicks backward from the GR110 snapshot). They look amazing!

I don't know what they are but I agree they are nice and they look like old converted gas lanterns. Very smart!

Yeah, Redbridge are pretty sensible with their lighting really. In the 1995 PFI, only installations before the 70s were replaced (the staple installations were GR150s on S&L columns and a mixture of Eleco PTs and GR550s on side roads - they were around 30 years old at the time, so I suppose they were getting a bit worse for wear). I presume this was because of the demise of Eleco and so the council couldn't get spare parts for them anymore, as well as the safety issues surrounding S&L columns because of how easily they rust. I don't remember any installations being particularly rusty, but I suppose the council replaced them anyway before they became too much of a concern. The GRs that do remain in the borough probably date to the 70s and 80s, and they're not installed on S&Ls, so I'm guessing that that's why they weren't replaced in the PFI. I'm certainly very glad they are still standing indeed - they're a fantastic sight to see! SOX is also still being installed here as casual replacements - I've seen Alpha 4s and MAs crop up many a time over the years to replace older SOX lanterns. As I said before, it's only around shops or in dangerous areas that SOX is replaced. Otherwise, it's left completely alone!

They had a PFI in 1995? Are you sure it was a PFI and not just a council replacement programme as (I may be wrong) but I don't think PFIs existed back then. Our council had a mass replacement programme in the late 80s getting rid of fluorescent and mercury lanterns and replacing them with SON (grr!) Anyway, good to see many Eleco GRs still survive there, I always preferred them to the Z9554 and MAs personally. The nearest GRs to me are GR150s on the A6 on the outskirts of Lancaster but there are not many left! However the A59 Longton Bypass between Preston and Ormskirk still has a long stretch of GR200s which are very rare these days! I don't remember any particular problems in my area with S&L columns rusting but that said, none survive today at all in my area except for one or two side road columns in Lytham St. Annes which were used as casual replacements for cast-iron columns many years ago. Lancashire started casually replacing SOX with SON as far back as about 1996 on main roads although residential roads with 5m columns survived a bit longer with Beta 5s still being used as casual replacements on already SOX-lit side roads until about 2000. That's the reason why there are so few SOX lanterns left in my area today!

Now, Redbridge are upgrading some of their SON to MH around shops and busy/dangerous areas, so to be honest Redbridge have been pretty sensible with using SON. The only thing I'm disappointed with is that they were never great lovers of concrete columns (they were only used up to the 50s) mercury or CFL, but other than that, Redbridge are pretty good in terms of streetlighting.

Well replacing SON with MH in sensitive areas is an excellent policy. MH hasn't caught on in a major way yet in Lancashire but there is a fair bit appearing in Blackpool (which is a unitary authority). Lord Street, which is the main shopping street in Fleetwood, had it's SON MRL6s replaced with quartz MH Urbis Albanys in 2001 but the public did not like them at all as they said they were too dim and gloomy (which to be fair was true) and they were soon converted to SON, which they still are today. However, todays ceramic MH is a vast improvement on quartz and Lord Street is due to be relit again soon due to the layout of the road vastly changing so it will be interesting to see if they use SON or MH this time!

Yeah, that does sound rather strange. Perhaps the Stratums and Iridiums run MH or Cosmopolis instead of SON, and so the council probably thought that it might be safer to use MH instead of SON, so they may well have changed their minds after the Vectras were installed. But then again, surely the Vectras could've been fitted with MH lamps instead? I think you might be right though - it sounds to me like there was a product recall by WRTL.

The Stratums and Iridiums are MH but like you say, the Vectras could be used for MH as well but they rarely are in Blackpool and most MH-lit areas have Stratums although MH Vectras are used on the notorious Middle Walk and (although I would never dare go down there at night) from the Prom they appear to light it extremely well. I like Stratums though, they are very smart and effective lanterns but the less said about Iridiums, the better!

Something strange like that happened at a new zebra crossing just round the corner from where I live that was installed in March last year. For the first 2 weeks or so, plain SGS203s without any zebra crossing optics were installed, and then about a week later, they were replaced with two ZX3 Zebras (one of which runs MH, and the other SON)! Perhaps the SGS203s, being as they weren't fitted with zebra crossing optics, were only temporary whilst the council were waiting for the ZX3 Zebras to be delivered from Urbis. I just only hope the SGS203s were reused elsewhere!

Yes, it does sound as if the SGS203s were temporary. They might have been old stock that was removed from another location. Something strange happened in my area back in about 1990 when the council decided that some side roads which were lit by 1950s Stanton 7 columns sleeved with SRL8s had some dark spots where there were big gaps between the columns. Instead of buying new columns they reused old Stanton 7s from other locations and for a while they were stood there with swanneck brackets and old mercury Beta 4 lanterns! However the Beta 4s never did work on any of the installations to my knowledge despite the fact they were there about six months before the columns were finally sleeved and fitted with (working) SRL8s! I wonder what the point in installing them with the swannecks and Beta 4s was when they had no intention of using them! Perhaps somebody at the council just thought they looked good!

Yeah, I think that Philips have been instrumental in prolonging SOX! Other streetlighting companies have just completely given up the ghost with SOX, but Philips never seem to give up with anything! Although I can never make out why they ceased the manufacture of the SGS204 - its older sister the SGS203 is still very much in production, but why not the SGS204? I mean, it does get used a lot on motorways, so it's not unpopular, but I do admit, it wasn't the prettiest or streamlined of lanterns.

I think the SGS204 might have been killed off because the newer Trafficvision (SGS306) is more popular on motorways and trunk roads and then there's the Iridium as well and the Selenium so against all that lot the SGS204 looks very dated! I don't think the 204 was ever as popular as the 203 and because the 203 is still more popular for less-important main roads than the Trafficvision that's why it continues in production. Personally I prefer the Trafficvision to the 203 as I think it is a far better lantern but that's just my opinion!

What a coincidence! The MA30s in Ilford are right by the Bombardier Ilford railway depot on the GER (Great Eastern Railway, that runs from Liverpool Street to East Anglia). I wonder if those are Network Rail owned as well? They light the roundabout right by one of the gated entrances and the concrete flyover (Winston Way) that goes over the railway. However, I doubt it as two double bracket installations have been replaced with ZX3s and Sapphires.

Well, like I say the Blackpool MA30s weren't installed by British Rail (as it was then) but by the council so yours probably aren't railway owned. The MA30s by the train station actually once lit the whole bypass next to the station as well but the council replaced them with MRL6s in about 1991 which is when it became clear the MA30s on the station approach were no longer council-owned as they survived!

Yeah, it's especially weird as post-top lanterns tend to spread light around the column height rather than directly onto the road. You'd think that with this craze of light pollution and saving energy it would've been the other way round, but instead it's going from well directed to poorly directed light! Roundabouts are funny things though - it's quite hard to determine whether to light the middle of the roundabout so motorists can see it's there (in other words, have post-top lanterns acting as beacons) or to light the roads around the roundabout (by either installing triple/quadruple brackets in the middle of the roundabout or have several single bracket installations around the edges) to increase safety and reduce chances of accidents. To be honest though, I think installing triple/quadruple brackets is the wrong thing to do, as the lanterns aren't aimed enough at the road and so don't light the road around the roundabout as effectively as they should, so I feel that installing several single brackets around the edge is much more effective! So I suppose the only effective way to consider all aspects is to install high-mast lighting on roundabouts, but that would be overkill, both in terms of light and energy!

I agree, you're probably right that having several side-entry lanterns on seperate columns around the roundabout lights it more effectively. Many of the busier roundabouts in my area are lit like that and to be fair they always have been! I even saw a picture of the West View Roundabout in Fleetwood taken in the 1950s when it was lit by several CU Avenue columns with mercury lanterns (possibly GEC Viatrons or similar). Blackpool used to have a lot of roundabouts lit with Phosco P222s but now these either have a sleeved double/triple-bracket on the same column with two or three MRL6s on it, or they have several Stainton highway hockeysticks (or CU concrete columns if an older replacement) around the roundabout with MRL6s on which is much more effective.

What I find particularly ironic is that councils say SOX lanterns cause light pollution, but they're side entry (in the main) so are in theory better directed towards the road, but yet a lot of SON lanterns (semi cut-off or full cut-off) can be installed post-top, so the light output of so-called "better directed" lanterns is being aimed at the top of the column rather than the road. Councils just can't seem to make up their minds! But in all fairness, I suppose it just depends on how well educated/thick your council are!

It is untrue that SOX lanterns cause more light pollution as the light is spread more evenly, whereas with FCO SON lanterns too much light is aimed at the road which means that the excess light reflects off the road surface and causes skyglow. I don't live in a city but a fairly medium-sized urban area and the orange light pollution at night can be quite bad and there are no SOX lanterns (apart from private installations) in my area at all!

Hmm, the casual replacements obviously weren't very well thought through there then! The highway authority should have just stuck with using MA60s to keep lighting levels consistent. But surely if Z9564s are 180w, they can take 135w lamps? That's of course assuming that those lanterns are Z9564s and not deep-bowled Z9554s.

They look more like Z9564s to me due to their size than deep-bowled Z9554s. I suppose, in theory, a Z9564 could take a 135w lamp but then what would be the point in the council buying Z9564s for a 135w SOX installation when Z9554s would probably be cheaper!

Yeah, that's weird how Newham/Greenwich council chose Vectras, as Vectras are very rare in East London (although they are used a fair bit in West London, especially by Hillingdon council). Perhaps the approach was to look continental rather than try to be flash (pun unintended), but you're right, Sepales or Thylias would look excellent! If Sepales were used, it'll look just like the bridge on Hayling Island that Lampman has pictured on his website.

Yeah, I noticed a Vectra used as a casual replacement in one of your Streetview links which surprised me as I thought they were virtually unseen in the South apart from in Bristol and West Sussex! Vectras are certainly continental anyway as they are very common in Europe although they are known there as Auroras (which is a much better name!).

[boing_uk]

Hey Scynthius, if you're involved in this PFI somehow then save us an Alpha 3, an Alpha 8 (MKII version please), a Gamma 6 and that P222 from Vicarage Lane. Thank you!

Wrong side... you need to speak to EOn.

Now, if you wanted some rust-stained leaky Mellors or things of that ilk, Scynth's your man.

[Rojojnr]

I must defend Dan123, that quote about Eleco GR101s was made by me, not him! I always thought the GR101 was the top-entry version of the GR100 but it seems you're right, the GR101 is the cut-off version although to complicate matters further I think the GRs in that photo are GR151s, the bigger version! Eleco GR110s eh? Not familiar with that product code but then top-entry GRs are quite rare aren't they?

No, sorry, that was my fault! I misread the writing!

Hmm...I'm not sure if it is a GR151, but I'll take your word for it anyway. GR151s were very common in Ramsgate in Kent, but sadly they were all lost to side-entry Arcs a couple of years ago. The good thing was though, the S&L columns they were installed on were repainted and reused for the new Arcs! I've got a picture of those installations in the SABRE gallery somewhere, but I took them quite a while ago now so they'll be right at the back of the gallery somewhere!

Wow, those are amazing! What gorgeous columns! I wonder if those have survived because that's a conservation area? I must say, I keep finding myself surprised at the old lighting still extant in well-known parts of London!

Yeah, they're incredible installations, aren't they? Richmond isn't to my knowledge a conservation area, as it's mostly SON now (boo!), but what Mike does say on his website is that the eight columns on this stretch suddenly reappeared after the rest of the columns on the road were replaced! So it looks like you are right, but Richmond isn't really a conservation area - actually, this section of road is!

They had a PFI in 1995? Are you sure it was a PFI and not just a council replacement programme as (I may be wrong) but I don't think PFIs existed back then. Our council had a mass replacement programme in the late 80s getting rid of fluorescent and mercury lanterns and replacing them with SON (grr!) Anyway, good to see many Eleco GRs still survive there, I always preferred them to the Z9554 and MAs personally. The nearest GRs to me are GR150s on the A6 on the outskirts of Lancaster but there are not many left! However the A59 Longton Bypass between Preston and Ormskirk still has a long stretch of GR200s which are very rare these days! I don't remember any particular problems in my area with S&L columns rusting but that said, none survive today at all in my area except for one or two side road columns in Lytham St. Annes which were used as casual replacements for cast-iron columns many years ago. Lancashire started casually replacing SOX with SON as far back as about 1996 on main roads although residential roads with 5m columns survived a bit longer with Beta 5s still being used as casual replacements on already SOX-lit side roads until about 2000. That's the reason why there are so few SOX lanterns left in my area today!

Yes, thinking about it, it must've been a mass replacement scheme, as PFIs were introduced by Labour, and so didn't come into effect until after 1997. A great shame to hear about Blackpool's loss of flourescent and mercury lanterns so early - I bet there must've been some classic installations there before! If it's any consolation though, your council still held on another year before they replaced SOX with SON, and another year makes a lot of difference!

Yeah, GRs certainly have to be one of my favourite SOX lanterns too! I certainly have a soft spot for them after so many of them were (and still are) installed here in Redbridge. I'll show you the ones which are left now.

My nearest GRs are these ones on Roding Lane North, just 2-3 miles down the road:

http://www.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source ... ,,2,-13.58

Judging by the columns, I think these were probably installed in the early to mid 80s, although I think there are a couple of 70s ones as well further down. There are also some Chalmit Davis GR100s as casual replacements here, as well as the elusive MA50!

http://www.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source ... ,,2,-16.52

Lots of GR150s here on Epping New Road, mounted on upangled brackets, which look to date from the 70s. There are a good load of MA casual replacements as well! These installations start where I've placed the yellow man and end at the junction of the A11, where 70s Z9554s take over for a while before Waltham Forest council's ZX3s begin.

http://www.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source ... 05,,2,-9.1

Some more of the previous installations, on Woodford High Road. The Streetview is a bit piecemeal here, but you still get enough to appreciate these wonderful installations!

http://www.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source ... ,,0,-21.59

Some very new-looking GR150s on Snakes Lane! I presume these date back to the mid-late 80s, and were probably some of the last ones installed in Redbridge!

http://www.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source ... ,,2,-11.34

GR100s on Maybank Road. Take a look at Gordon Road (the first right turning off Maybank Road) and you'll see some of the last Eleco side street lanterns in the borough! Some GR550s can also be seen here on Gwynne Park Avenue, off Manor Road:

http://www.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source ... 6,,2,-5.81

GR550s are still relatively common in the borough - there is the odd cul-de-sac here and there which is still lit with them. If you're interested, I'll send you the links for them.

Chigwell Road, Broadmead Road and Hermon Hill are worth a look too - lots of 70s Z9554s on Chigwell and Broadmead Roads and Hermon Hill is lit almost entirely by Alpha 4s! The same also goes for Whitehall Road, off Woodford Green High Road (Epping New Road changes its name to Woodford High Road just before the junction with Whitehall Road. You can also see a few more GR150s on Chingford Lane (the next turning on the right along from Whitehall Road) off Woodford Green High Road.

And that's pretty much all the SOX that still survives in Redbridge!

Well replacing SON with MH in sensitive areas is an excellent policy. MH hasn't caught on in a major way yet in Lancashire but there is a fair bit appearing in Blackpool (which is a unitary authority). Lord Street, which is the main shopping street in Fleetwood, had it's SON MRL6s replaced with quartz MH Urbis Albanys in 2001 but the public did not like them at all as they said they were too dim and gloomy (which to be fair was true) and they were soon converted to SON, which they still are today. However, todays ceramic MH is a vast improvement on quartz and Lord Street is due to be relit again soon due to the layout of the road vastly changing so it will be interesting to see if they use SON or MH this time!

Yeah, I think replacing SON with MH is a very sensible thing to do at a busy/dangerous junction or where people are more vulnerable. Lancashire will probably catch onto this at some point - MH is still in its infancy yet, so other councils still have a good opportunity to try it out! It's just that Redbridge have been trialling MH for a good 3-4 years now (Philips have advertised Redbridge on their website for trialling the Milewide) and are now very much the trendsetters for using MH (and for sensible streetlighting, come to that)!

Ah yes, I've seen the Albanys on Lord Street on NWSL (Wallasey's website) and also Geograph. Very nice installations indeed, but it is a shame they replaced good lanterns like MRL6s and how dingy you say that residents said the installations made the streets.

Quartz metal halide? I've never heard of that before! Is it the pinkish coloured halide or the bluish-white kind, like Cosmopolis?

The Stratums and Iridiums are MH but like you say, the Vectras could be used for MH as well but they rarely are in Blackpool and most MH-lit areas have Stratums although MH Vectras are used on the notorious Middle Walk and (although I would never dare go down there at night) from the Prom they appear to light it extremely well. I like Stratums though, they are very smart and effective lanterns but the less said about Iridiums, the better!

Why would you never go down Middle Walk at night? Because of yobbos, or the sight of MH Vectras?

Yeah, I rather like Stratums too. There are some rather posh-looking ones on Cranbrook Road round the corner from me which replaced SON ZX3s in 2005:

http://www.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source ... ,,0,-14.32

Notice they have blue, translucent canopies and clear bowls! When they're lit, the light from the MH lamp glows up into the canopy and makes it look as if there are two MH lamps in each lantern, lighting up both the bowl and the canopy of the lantern in blue and white! They look really posh and contemporary at night!

Something strange happened in my area back in about 1990 when the council decided that some side roads which were lit by 1950s Stanton 7 columns sleeved with SRL8s had some dark spots where there were big gaps between the columns. Instead of buying new columns they reused old Stanton 7s from other locations and for a while they were stood there with swanneck brackets and old mercury Beta 4 lanterns! However the Beta 4s never did work on any of the installations to my knowledge despite the fact they were there about six months before the columns were finally sleeved and fitted with (working) SRL8s! I wonder what the point in installing them with the swannecks and Beta 4s was when they had no intention of using them! Perhaps somebody at the council just thought they looked good!

Wow, that is very weird! Never heard of Beta 4s being reused like that before! Perhaps the intention was originally to have the Beta 4s temporarily in service, but the council probably forgot to wire them up or something daft like that and so the Beta 4s never got round to doing the job they were supposed to!

I think the SGS204 might have been killed off because the newer Trafficvision (SGS306) is more popular on motorways and trunk roads and then there's the Iridium as well and the Selenium so against all that lot the SGS204 looks very dated! I don't think the 204 was ever as popular as the 203 and because the 203 is still more popular for less-important main roads than the Trafficvision that's why it continues in production. Personally I prefer the Trafficvision to the 203 as I think it is a far better lantern but that's just my opinion!

Yeah, I make you right! The SGS204 was always a motorway lantern really, wasn't it? The SGS203 has always been a more suitable option for "less-important main roads" as you put it. Yeah, I do agree that the Trafficvision is an excellent installation that really aims the light well and does a great job of lighting motorways and trunk roads, but in terms of aesthetics, I would plump for the SGS203! The Trafficvision can look a bit on the ugly side if used on the wrong type of installation, whereas the 203 looks great on pretty much anything!

I agree, you're probably right that having several side-entry lanterns on seperate columns around the roundabout lights it more effectively. Many of the busier roundabouts in my area are lit like that and to be fair they always have been! I even saw a picture of the West View Roundabout in Fleetwood taken in the 1950s when it was lit by several CU Avenue columns with mercury lanterns (possibly GEC Viatrons or similar). Blackpool used to have a lot of roundabouts lit with Phosco P222s but now these either have a sleeved double/triple-bracket on the same column with two or three MRL6s on it, or they have several Stainton highway hockeysticks (or CU concrete columns if an older replacement) around the roundabout with MRL6s on which is much more effective.

Yeah, nearly all the roundabouts round my way have side-entry installations around the edge. One has top-entry lanterns, but they are SON Urbis Stratoses (if that's the right plural) and they are mounted on very high columns (not sure exactly what height though, but they're bigger than 10m columns), so have more powerful lamps installed and have good light distribution.

I don't live in a city but a fairly medium-sized urban area and the orange light pollution at night can be quite bad and there are no SOX lanterns (apart from private installations) in my area at all!

Same here! I don't live in Central London, but on the suburbs of East London and the skyglow from the Urbis ZXs around here is awful! It was even worse back in February when he had that huge snowstorm and you had a big load of albedo (light reflection off the snow) - it was like you were living in a parallel universe!

I suppose, in theory, a Z9564 could take a 135w lamp but then what would be the point in the council buying Z9564s for a 135w SOX installation when Z9554s would probably be cheaper!

Ah yes, very true!

Yeah, I noticed a Vectra used as a casual replacement in one of your Streetview links which surprised me as I thought they were virtually unseen in the South apart from in Bristol and West Sussex! Vectras are certainly continental anyway as they are very common in Europe although they are known there as Auroras (which is a much better name!).

Vectras do have a small occurrence down here in the south, but they are quite rare, although Barking and Dagenham (next door to Redbridge) use Vectra Xs on many of their zebra crossings. Yeah, I wish we could use the name Aurora too! I keep getting the WRTL Vectra mixed up with the Vauxhall Vectra! Although I think a more appropriate name for it up north would be the WRTL Dracula!

[Gram587]

Wrong side... you need to speak to EOn.

Now, if you wanted some rust-stained leaky Mellors or things of that ilk, Scynth's your man.

Hmmmm some traffic lights in my bedroom window might look interesting...

Rojojnr:

My nearest GRs are these ones on Roding Lane North, just 2-3 miles down the road:

http://www.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source ... ,,2,-13.58

Judging by the columns, I think these were probably installed in the early to mid 80s, although I think there are a couple of 70s ones as well further down. There are also some Chalmit Davis GR100s as casual replacements here, as well as the elusive MA50!

Yeah, they look like Fabrikat columns, very 1980s. What a long stretch of GRs that is! I wonder if there is any group A SOX-lit road in Britain today which doesn't have at least one Philips MA casual replacement?

http://www.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source ... ,,2,-16.52

Lots of GR150s here on Epping New Road, mounted on upangled brackets, which look to date from the 70s. There are a good load of MA casual replacements as well! These installations start where I've placed the yellow man and end at the junction of the A11, where 70s Z9554s take over for a while before Waltham Forest council's ZX3s begin.

An extremely long stretch of GRs here! (Britain's longest today maybe?) Amazing to see them lighting such a major thoroughfare these days!

http://www.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source ... ,,0,-21.59

Some very new-looking GR150s on Snakes Lane! I presume these date back to the mid-late 80s, and were probably some of the last ones installed in Redbridge!

I remember seeing some GR100s being installed on curvy columns in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire in 1987. I remember thinking even then that they looked quite old-fashioned! I wonder when the GRs actually went out of production? These 1987 GRs were the Eleco version by the way, not the less distinctive Chalmit-Davis version which I believe came later.

http://www.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source ... ,,2,-11.34

GR100s on Maybank Road. Take a look at Gordon Road (the first right turning off Maybank Road) and you'll see some of the last Eleco side street lanterns in the borough! Some GR550s can also be seen here on Gwynne Park Avenue, off Manor Road:

There's still a lot of GR550s in Salford, where it seems 6m (or the nearest equivalent in feet) columns on all residential roads have been the norm since the 1960s. If any got replaced it was usually by Urbis ZX1s, again on 6m columns.

http://www.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source ... 6,,2,-5.81

GR550s are still relatively common in the borough - there is the odd cul-de-sac here and there which is still lit with them. If you're interested, I'll send you the links for them.

Ok, thank you and yeah, keep 'em coming!

Chigwell Road, Broadmead Road and Hermon Hill are worth a look too - lots of 70s Z9554s on Chigwell and Broadmead Roads and Hermon Hill is lit almost entirely by Alpha 4s! The same also goes for Whitehall Road, off Woodford Green High Road (Epping New Road changes its name to Woodford High Road just before the junction with Whitehall Road. You can also see a few more GR150s on Chingford Lane (the next turning on the right along from Whitehall Road) off Woodford Green High Road.

And that's pretty much all the SOX that still survives in Redbridge!

Well at least there's still quite a bit! I saw some Urbis Frogners on Chigwell Road as well, a couple of GR150s among the Z9554s on Broadmead Road and I'm liking the geared Alpha 4s. Geared Alpha 4s were never used in my area and to me they look a novelty and more modern than the gearless Alpha 4s in my minds eye! Not too much SOX left on Chingford Lane, most of it has been ZX2-ed but at least a few GR150s remain at the beginning of the road. I like the standard group B installation around Redbridge which seems to be a very short Fabrikat column with a long bracket fitted with an SGS203. Very smart and different!

Quartz metal halide? I've never heard of that before! Is it the pinkish coloured halide or the bluish-white kind, like Cosmopolis?

Quartz metal halide (HQI) was the early form of MH lighting before ceramic MH came along. It wasn't popular as lamp life was poor and when the lamps failed they used to explode! Plus the fact light output wasn't really anything to shout about These HQI Albanys gave off a bluish-white light (coolwhite) as opposed to the more pinkish type which is warmwhite. It used to look rather like somebody had installed 80w MBF on 10m columns such was the poor light output!

Why would you never go down Middle Walk at night? Because of yobbos, or the sight of MH Vectras?

Oi, I like Vectras! No, it's not because of yobbos, everybody in Blackpool knows why they should stay off the Middle Walk at night unless they like that kind of thing... If you really want to know why PM me and I will tell you why

Yeah, I rather like Stratums too. There are some rather posh-looking ones on Cranbrook Road round the corner from me which replaced SON ZX3s in 2005:

http://www.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source ... ,,0,-14.32

Notice they have blue, translucent canopies and clear bowls! When they're lit, the light from the MH lamp glows up into the canopy and makes it look as if there are two MH lamps in each lantern, lighting up both the bowl and the canopy of the lantern in blue and white! They look really posh and contemporary at night!

Nice touch, but those are Urbis Saturns I'm afraid not Stratums! This is a Stratum:
http://paulharris.fotopic.net/p54270416.html
I know it's hard to tell from this photo but they are flatter and more disc-shaped than a Saturn.

Wow, that is very weird! Never heard of Beta 4s being reused like that before! Perhaps the intention was originally to have the Beta 4s temporarily in service, but the council probably forgot to wire them up or something daft like that and so the Beta 4s never got round to doing the job they were supposed to!

It would have been great if they had wired them up but very strange as all the other lanterns in the road were SON so there would have been one or two bluey-white glows nestling in amongst all the overly-bright orange!

Yeah, I make you right! The SGS204 was always a motorway lantern really, wasn't it? The SGS203 has always been a more suitable option for "less-important main roads" as you put it. Yeah, I do agree that the Trafficvision is an excellent installation that really aims the light well and does a great job of lighting motorways and trunk roads, but in terms of aesthetics, I would plump for the SGS203! The Trafficvision can look a bit on the ugly side if used on the wrong type of installation, whereas the 203 looks great on pretty much anything!

I think Trafficvisions look great, really quirky and they stand out and even look good post-top which is hard to achieve! On the other hand I find SGS203s very bland and age doesn't seem to do them any favours either as after a few years they tend to look very scabby indeed! I dismay when I see councils still installing these as in my eyes they are very dated, I would rather see them use the Trafficvision, although anything's better than more Iridiums I suppose!

Yeah, nearly all the roundabouts round my way have side-entry installations around the edge. One has top-entry lanterns, but they are SON Urbis Stratoses (if that's the right plural) and they are mounted on very high columns (not sure exactly what height though, but they're bigger than 10m columns), so have more powerful lamps installed and have good light distribution.

That Stratos is a smart lantern, I see they use those around Central London and they look good! One main junction in Blackpool is Oxford Square and this has high-mast lighting- bizarrely it consists of an ultra-tall (taller than 15m) column with about eight Vectras attached to it! Very strange-looking installation! These eight Vectras replaced one Phosco P222 which previously graced this skyscraping column! What a waste of money when they could have used an Urbis Stratos or (even better) an Abacus Orion.

Same here! I don't live in Central London, but on the suburbs of East London and the skyglow from the Urbis ZXs around here is awful! It was even worse back in February when he had that huge snowstorm and you had a big load of albedo (light reflection off the snow) - it was like you were living in a parallel universe!

I agree, when it snows round here everywhere at night is bright orange! It's ridiculous! It kind of hurts your eyes after a while too!

Vectras do have a small occurrence down here in the south, but they are quite rare, although Barking and Dagenham (next door to Redbridge) use Vectra Xs on many of their zebra crossings. Yeah, I wish we could use the name Aurora too! I keep getting the WRTL Vectra mixed up with the Vauxhall Vectra! Although I think a more appropriate name for it up north would be the WRTL Dracula!

Yeah I know what you mean the bowl does look a bit like a fang doesn't it! Funnily enough, common though the Vectra is here, we don't see Vectra Xs in this area. Most zebra crossings simply have an unknown MH floodlight on them, if they have individual lighting at all. Vectras are getting even more common in Lancashire now as we are switching over to using remote sensoring for our lanterns and the lantern of choice for this is the Vectra as it has a dimming device built in. On my road our old Vectras were recently replaced with new ones, which baffled me- but it seems the reason is the remote sensoring devices which are fitted to the new ones which mean they all warm up and come into full light all at exactly the same time (creepy!) and they all go dimmer at midnight and I mean much dimmer from 150w to maybe 70w! It's that noticeable!

[Rojojnr]

I wonder if there is any group A SOX-lit road in Britain today which doesn't have at least one Philips MA casual replacement?

Quite a few roads in Croydon don't have MA casual replacements! Many roads there have large stretches of Z9454s on S&Ls, and there's not an MA in sight! Check Coombe Lane out:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... 6,,0,-3.96

Nearby Merton doesn't have many roads with MA casual replacements either. Coincidentally, they also mainly use Z9454s with S&Ls! I wonder if Merton and Croydon were all under one authority at one point and so both had similar streetlighting?

I wonder when the GRs actually went out of production?

I think I read somewhere it was around 1985 when the whole of Eleco collapsed. That'd probably explain why Redbridge chose to do its mass replacement around 1995. The council probably still had some stocks left of GRs but they ran out about ten years later, and so they replaced the oldest GRs (from the 60s) with ZX3s. As I said, those GRs that still remain probably date from mostly the mid-late 70s and 80s, and at the time the council probably thought they still had some life in them and so kept them for a bit longer. They're still very much going strong today, so they must be doing well in terms of life!

If any got replaced it was usually by Urbis ZX1s, again on 6m columns.

That's a coincidence! Redbridge replaced most of its GR550s with ZX1s too in the mass replacement scheme! Although for the GR550s that still stand today, I have seen some XGS103s be installed as casual replacements, as you'll see now.

Ok, thank you and yeah, keep 'em coming!

Great, here we go then:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... 1,,2,-4.24

This is Bronte Close very near where I live. The whole cul-de-sac is full of them, and there's an XGS103 casual replacement over the back too! Notice how new and freshly painted the columns look! I would imagine, therefore, these were installed in the late 80s or maybe even the early 90s.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... 16,,0,4.02

Amanda Close has two 80s Beta 5s (owned by Epping Forest Council) and then the rest of the close is lit with GR550s owned by Redbridge. Judging by the columns, these ones are older than the Bronte Close examples and are probably from the 70s or early 80s.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... 5,,2,-6.13

Rover Avenue is lit half by ZX1s and half by GR550s! There's also even a Phosco P226 (which I've zoomed into) as well! Whether that was the original installation to these columns or if it was an early casual replacement I don't know, but it's there! Just look at how new they all look - the columns have still got their bitumen deposit on the bottom! These must be definitely early 1990s (or perhaps even mid 1990s) examples!

Well at least there's still quite a bit! I saw some Urbis Frogners on Chigwell Road as well, a couple of GR150s among the Z9554s on Broadmead Road and I'm liking the geared Alpha 4s. Geared Alpha 4s were never used in my area and to me they look a novelty and more modern than the gearless Alpha 4s in my minds eye! Not too much SOX left on Chingford Lane, most of it has been ZX2-ed but at least a few GR150s remain at the beginning of the road. I like the standard group B installation around Redbridge which seems to be a very short Fabrikat column with a long bracket fitted with an SGS203. Very smart and different!

Frogners? I know there are some Auroras around the shops on Chigwell Road, but didn't know about Frogners there. Yeah, I think the Alpha 4s are one of the best bits of Redbridge's SOX - they're still very common in the borough and I've seen many new examples go up as casual replacements too! They never used to be very popular in Redbridge (neither was the MA, come to that, but the MA was more common) but throughout the 80s/early 90s their popularity here rocketed)! The MA's popularity has rocketed too compared to what it was, but now Alpha 4s are more common - in fact there's another whole road of them I forgot to show you here:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... 5,,0,-9.84

Yeah, there hasn't been much SOX on Chingford Lane ever since I've known it, because the GRs are owned by Redbridge and the ZX2s are owned by Waltham Forest, who had a mass replacement scheme around the same time as Redbridge. Unfortunately, no SOX remains at all in Waltham Forest - they were a big fan of sleeved concrete columns (mostly with Z9454s installed) and I suppose concretes were losing popularity because of their health and safety problems and so Waltham Forest replaced them all with ZX2s. The side road concretes, however, have been retained and have been sleeved with ZX1s (whether the sleeving was carried out previously before the ZX1s were installed is another question, but that's how Waltham Forest's side roads are, anyway). I can remember some of the ZX2/3s being installed too, as I drove along a few roads with my granddad (I was only about 5 years old!) around that time as the sleeved concretes were being replaced!

There actually weren't that many short Fabrikat installations around with SGS203s installed - it's only around the Woodford area that they were and still are common. The actual staple main road installation since the 1995 mass replacement scheme is the white bowled ZX3 on curved Fabrikat brackets, like this:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... ,,3,-14.06

By the way, that's my secondary school behind that ZX3!

However, the ZX3 is now being replaced in some places by Sapphires running MH (used in busy/dangerous areas) and the Furyo, which has been trialled on seemingly random roads and run MH, as opposed to the ZX3s which run SON. The SGS203 is the second staple installation, and I would say it being installed on those short bracket Fabrikat installations is the second most common installation in Redbridge! Coming third is it and the ZX3/2 being installed on these:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... ,,1,-25.37

These HQI Albanys gave off a bluish-white light (coolwhite) as opposed to the more pinkish type which is warmwhite. It used to look rather like somebody had installed 80w MBF on 10m columns such was the poor light output!

I think some SGS203s and a few MRL6s in Ilford Town Centre must run quartz metal halide as it has a warmwhite colour as opposed to the coolwhite colour you mention. You are right, the light quality is very poor indeed! I'm surprised the SGS203s and MRL6s haven't been upgraded to SON or coolwhite MH!

Oi, I like Vectras! No, it's not because of yobbos, everybody in Blackpool knows why they should stay off the Middle Walk at night unless they like that kind of thing... If you really want to know why PM me and I will tell you why!

I was only kidding about the Vectras!

Don't worry mate, I think I know what you mean!

Nice touch, but those are Urbis Saturns I'm afraid not Stratums! This is a Stratum:
http://paulharris.fotopic.net/p54270416.html
I know it's hard to tell from this photo but they are flatter and more disc-shaped than a Saturn.

Oh, I thought Saturns were thicker and more spherical than those installations on Cranbrook Road. But you are right - the Cranbrook Road installations certainly look meatier than Stratums.

I think Trafficvisions look great, really quirky and they stand out and even look good post-top which is hard to achieve! On the other hand I find SGS203s very bland and age doesn't seem to do them any favours either as after a few years they tend to look very scabby indeed! I dismay when I see councils still installing these as in my eyes they are very dated, I would rather see them use the Trafficvision, although anything's better than more Iridiums I suppose!

Yeah, Trafficvisions are certainly quirky, I know that! I saw some running SON on the M2 in Kent on Saturday night and those large grey side entry and post-top adapters that are located just underneath the canopy were also lit too! Just shows you what a good cut-off installation the Trafficvision is!

I agree with you how SGS203s seem to age very quickly - just take a look at many Sainsbury's car parks! My local Sainsbury's has manky old SGS203s installed on side entry adapters on what look like CCTV camera columns and some of the canopies look almost green from not being cleaned for years! A couple of the SGS203s have very brown bowls and it makes me wonder whether they still chuck out any useful light output at all! It seems that Sainsbury's have started to realise how hard to maintain SGS203s are as my local store has casually replaced a few with black flat-glass ZX3s and a couple of Kingfisher Lunoides. This example looks almost the same colour as the column it's installed on:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sourc ... 5,,1,-9.07

These SGS203s must date back to the mid 1980s (when they first started being produced) judging by their filthy condition!

That Stratos is a smart lantern, I see they use those around Central London and they look good! One main junction in Blackpool is Oxford Square and this has high-mast lighting- bizarrely it consists of an ultra-tall (taller than 15m) column with about eight Vectras attached to it! Very strange-looking installation! These eight Vectras replaced one Phosco P222 which previously graced this skyscraping column! What a waste of money when they could have used an Urbis Stratos or (even better) an Abacus Orion.

Yeah, I like the Stratos too and they are very commonly found in Central London with black canopies. Those eight Vectras sound extremely wasteful and way OTT. Yeah, why not use a good old Abacus Orion like Tesco and Morrisons do in their car parks?

Oh, that reminds me, there's loads of these lanterns still in Central London:

http://www.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source ... ,,2,-21.66

GEC ZD10839s!!! There are also a few ZD815s that still run mercury, like this example here:

http://www.leedsstreetlight.co.uk/englandlondon.htm

Apologies for not using Streetview for that one, but I don't know exactly where that is.