Paianni wrote:Mate, that is a six year old post! At the time the M25 was illuminated with SOX (or nothing) from J21 to J26 and J27 to J30, i.e the northern side of it. And I hadn't yet realised the M45 story was a hoax.
My apologies; I'm still getting used to the new format! My phone had told me that was a new post plus it was early and I didn't see the date.
Still just does prove so much has changed with regards to lighting the M25.
Brenley Corner: congesting traffic since 1963; discussing roads since 2002
All remaining SOX on the slip roads of the northern M25 (J21,23, 24 and 25) is being replaced with Sapphires on new columns and the SOX at the M1 end of the M45 has been removed as a result of the works there. I shouldn't think the SOX at J31 of the M25 has much longer left either, though it was still there at the start of April
Railway, road, sky, football, rugby enthusiast since 2001
Giving this thread a bump. SOX seems to have "gone for a burton" almost everywhere. Loads of it gone in the Manchester/Bolton area, although pockets do remain. Visited the M60 a few months ago and compared to when I went in 2014 the SOX is completely done. Stark contrast to 2014 when most of the northern half was lit proudly with SOX and some SON. The motorway appears to be having an extra lane added and conversion to smart motorway.
Absolute silliness going on in general with light replacements at the moment. Plenty of places that only a year or so ago were using Cosmo, now mass replaced with LED. Why?!
I recently got shot of my MA50 (sans gear and lamp), christ what a behemoth that was - and that's without the gear shoe that converts it to MA60. I pity the guys who have to go up in the bucket lift and replace those things.
So, does any motorway SOX still remain going into 2017 that isn't a sea of failed lamps? I keep hearing about M1 catenary, but I rarely have a need to go down that far, and being from Scotland, it's a mammoth trip.
Most of the remaining 180W SOX on the Chichester Bypass has disappeared. A small handful of survivors remain. It's still going strong on the A27 Brighton Bypass, but I reckon it won't be long before a replacement scheme happens.
The longest stretch of motorway SOX in the UK is in Wales, but the A13 west of M25 comes close in terms of prominence.
Round my way SOX has slowly been 'closing in' - Herts has its own replacement programme in progress, and Connect Plus' maintenance of SOX on the M25, M1 and A1(M) is getting worse day by day.
They are the original lanterns. Identical Philips' lanterns were also installed on the slip roads at the then A74 / A6071 junction (now M6 Junction 45) so you had identical SOX installations on either side of the Border (the SOX lanterns on the English side were replaced a few years ago, mainly by flat glass MRL6's).
It appears the 180W, 18W, SOX-E and PSG lamps may have been discontinued, as they are no longer listed on the Philips website. Also, Osram no longer has a share of the manufacturing at Hamilton. I'm guessing these changes came as a consequence of scaling down the operations at that factory in 2015. The only products being made now are 35W to 135W SOX and SOX Plus.
The Philips website has a history of being unreliable when it comes to the display of products. Sometimes products disappear and reappear on the website.
Having said that, it probably won't be too far into the future until SOX is discontinued. Whilst 180W SOX is now rare over here, in Belgium it is still commonly used on motorways, although having said that a large amount of their motorway lighting has fallen into disrepair.
sotonsteve wrote:The Philips website has a history of being unreliable when it comes to the display of products. Sometimes products disappear and reappear on the website.
It doesn't help that their website is rather cludged up with Javascript and all that jazz, and they don't seem to update their PDF catalogues as often as they should/keep them available/fix broken links!
I don't believe there is anything not on their Intl. website that is still being made.
Both major Belgian regions have announced that they are going LED on motorways and trunk roads. With the Belgians turning their back on SOX, this is will likely be a fatal blow to the higher wattage lamps, as they probably have more higher wattage SOX installations than the rest of Europe combined now.
Okay, I'm mistaken; SOX-E and SOX PSG are still on. The only discontinued products are the 180W SOX and 36W SOX-E PSG. Technically that means the MA60s around the world remain serviceable with a 131W SOX-E lamp with the correct gear.
Paianni wrote:Okay, I'm mistaken; SOX-E and SOX PSG are still on. The only discontinued products are the 180W SOX and 36W SOX-E PSG. Technically that means the MA60s around the world remain serviceable with a 131W SOX-E lamp with the correct gear.
The best way of finding out if a Philips product still exists is to do a Google search on it. If something is returned, it probably still exists, and if it doesn't then perhaps it doesn't. Google search is more reliable than going via the Philips website. I did a search on Philips 180W SOX the other day and found a web link to lamps on their website.
