Glasgow Streetlighting

[scott125]

Must say Glasgow is great if your after variety and old streetlighting .
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.81821 ... 6656?hl=en

A common lantern in Glasgow are these in the streetview image , how old are they ?

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.85134 ... 6656?hl=en

And these in the gorbals when were these installed?

[Bryn666]

The MA90s look to be from the late 70s, and the Thorn Alpha 8s would be from the early 80s too.

[Truvelo]

There's also a lot of Alpha 4's in Glasgow. These would be of a similar vintage.

[scott125]

The MA90s look to be from the late 70s, and the Thorn Alpha 8s would be from the early 80s too.

Interesting , i thought the MA 90S would be late 80s .

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.83684 ... 312!8i6656

Some old lanterns here , wired .Id say 1970s with columns a lot older

[scott125]

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.84315 ... 312!8i6656

Just to the left of the rusty column looks like an original lantern on a wired post . What a find ! Seen it from the railway .


https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.84317 ... 312!8i6656

Interesting installation to say the least . Im certain theystill install these phillips lanterns in Glasgow.

[trencheel303]

Fellow Glasgow area person myself.

Areas of interest: Herries Road and St Andrews drive - old (look to be post or during WW2 era) concrete columns with early sodium lanterns. No one really knows what they are but the suggestion is early Mazda linear that were later converted to run SOX.

Clarkston Road - Alpha Four and MA50 galore

West End (woodlands) - Tamlite Tamcourt universe - literally. Also the odd older beta or GEC one.

Linthaugh Road - WAS alpha four, I think it's been LED'd now.

Any of the side streets around Hillington area - columns and overhead wiring that haven't changed in 50 years bearing SOX and the occasional PL-L lantern.

Millions of MA50s, Alpha Fours, 9454s, the odd 9554, the occasional Eleco 90W internal geared that uses the body of the GR150, loads of Alpha 8s and z8600s (which quite often run MH near the city centre). One or two Hyperions and then weird and wonderful ones (usually in railway stations) made by Disano or disaronno or whatever they're called.

Just outside Paisley gilmour street station there are several turtles and the odd alpha three in a car park.

Don't even get me started on Edinburgh and the general area .. which is a treasure trove of old betas, alphas (including an Alpha One) , GEC SOX wall lights, the odd mercury, MH, some early ish SON too ..

Look me up on lighting gallery or photo bucket for photos .

[scott125]

Fellow Glasgow area person myself.

Areas of interest: Herries Road and St Andrews drive - old (look to be post or during WW2 era) concrete columns with early sodium lanterns. No one really knows what they are but the suggestion is early Mazda linear that were later converted to run SOX.

Clarkston Road - Alpha Four and MA50 galore

West End (woodlands) - Tamlite Tamcourt universe - literally. Also the odd older beta or GEC one.

Linthaugh Road - WAS alpha four, I think it's been LED'd now.

Any of the side streets around Hillington area - columns and overhead wiring that haven't changed in 50 years bearing SOX and the occasional PL-L lantern.

Millions of MA50s, Alpha Fours, 9454s, the odd 9554, the occasional Eleco 90W internal geared that uses the body of the GR150, loads of Alpha 8s and z8600s (which quite often run MH near the city centre). One or two Hyperions and then weird and wonderful ones (usually in railway stations) made by Disano or disaronno or whatever they're called.

Just outside Paisley gilmour street station there are several turtles and the odd alpha three in a car park.

Don't even get me started on Edinburgh and the general area .. which is a treasure trove of old betas, alphas (including an Alpha One) , GEC SOX wall lights, the odd mercury, MH, some early ish SON too ..

Look me up on lighting gallery or photo bucket for photos .

Pollokshields is a treasure trove , i wonder why it hasnt been replaced !
I always remember alpha 1s in Edinburgh .
Yes tamllites galore in Glasgow , ive seen them in Bulgaria too !
Clarkston Road is pretty much all SON now , changes at Glasgow / East Ren Border ZX3s were installed around 2004 .

[trencheel303]

have a look here, there's a whole line of those lamp posts and the one in the distance has the old "dust bin lid" lantern on it. It looks to have been an old service road or path that goes down beside the railway. Maybe even an old platform.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.84318 ... 312!8i6656

I am far from an expert but if I were to take a crack at guessing the age of these, I'd say they date back to the 30s or 40s and are probably from mass electrification. My understanding is that Glasgow wouldn't have seen large scale electrification of its street lighting until this point. Switching back and forth the dates of GSV it looks like as time goes on these are rapidly succumbing to wear and tear. The good thing is there's a gap in that fence to poke a camera through and with it being winter the undergrowth will be at a minimum.

The removal van makes the late 2015 GSV very hard to see it, but it looks like the nearest one has now lost its lantern. I would absolutely love to know if anyone can identify it, it's the same as the ones in this picture from the 1960s:

http://www.lighting-gallery.net/gallery ... os=-106492

[scott125]

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.84732 ... 312!8i6656

Some classics , 1970s perhaps!

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.85237 ... 312!8i6656

Think this old SOX is still there surprisingly

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.88437 ... 312!8i6656

These oldies are surviving too .

[scott125]

have a look here, there's a whole line of those lamp posts and the one in the distance has the old "dust bin lid" lantern on it. It looks to have been an old service road or path that goes down beside the railway. Maybe even an old platform.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.84318 ... 312!8i6656

I am far from an expert but if I were to take a crack at guessing the age of these, I'd say they date back to the 30s or 40s and are probably from mass electrification. My understanding is that Glasgow wouldn't have seen large scale electrification of its street lighting until this point. Switching back and forth the dates of GSV it looks like as time goes on these are rapidly succumbing to wear and tear. The good thing is there's a gap in that fence to poke a camera through and with it being winter the undergrowth will be at a minimum.

The removal van makes the late 2015 GSV very hard to see it, but it looks like the nearest one has now lost its lantern. I would absolutely love to know if anyone can identify it, it's the same as the ones in this picture from the 1960s:

http://www.lighting-gallery.net/gallery ... os=-106492

One still has a Bulb in place . Wonder when the last time they worked ?
When were the last of these lanterns seen elsewhere in Glasgow ?

[trencheel303]

Right. Prepare for an essay!!

I went to Glasgow today and felt it'd be rude not to take an opportunity to try and get up close to these mysterious "dust bin lid" lanterns.

Looking at the GSV links provided, at least one of the lanterns nearest the road has disappeared between 2014 and now. Vandals possibly, or just the elements taking toll. I had expected to rock up to where the gate was, poke my camera over the wall with my longest lens on, and give it all it's got.

I was pleasantly surprised when I turned up to find the gate was open. I could see one or two people well beyond it so, as my old mate would say, I "brass necked it" and walked on in. The path is cobbled and overgrown from decades of abandonment. Towards the end of the pathway two of the old lanterns remain. Although several of the columns remain wired to each other, the supply from further on up has been cut.

Here is a link to a pic:

https://i886.photobucket.com/albums/ac70 ... b84fyx.jpg

And to the lantern itself up close:

https://i886.photobucket.com/albums/ac70 ... mgtbkp.jpg

As a reminder, this is the family photo from 1966 showing the same lantern that originally piqued my interest into how far back they go into Glasgow's lighting history: https://www.lighting-gallery.net/gallery ... os=-106492

Now, revisiting the history of Glasgow's lighting as a whole this may help putting together the puzzle.

I did some googling and happened upon a scanned copy of the Glasgow Herald with an article about Glasgow's street lighting - this one about the replacement of the last gas lamp. What I didn't realise until later on is the article was from September 1971! So until ~50 years ago, Glasgow was at least in small part lit by gas lighting. Although gas street lighting had disappeared at time of writing, lighting in stairways and tenement closes was stated as still partly gas, and this is corroborated by stories I've been told by my grandmother who left Glasgow not long before this.

The article goes on to give some key points of history of Glasgow's lighting. Lighting may have begun in Glasgow as far back as 1780, with 9 oil lamps between Tron Steeple and Stockwell Street. By 1815 there were over a thousand lamps, although it states that in those days general practice was for a servant to carry a lamp for you and light the way! By 1818 the first gas street lamp had been installed and the article suggests more followed soon after. I don't know whether this would be mains gas or whether the column bases contained individual tanks. The article states that in 1893 the first electric light was installed, with the labour force of the lighting department rising to 1500 (at the time of writing the article, it had dropped to 1100). At the time of writing the article states that 52,879 electric lights were in place.

A link to the scan is here: https://i886.photobucket.com/albums/ac70 ... cs5its.jpg

Up until recently I had been going on the assumption that Glasgow largely skipped mercury lighting, perhaps going from incandescent (or gas!) straight to SOX. The abundance of early SOX lanterns and very old concrete columns, along with sighting no old mercury stock at all appeared to support this.It was perhaps too big of an assumption though, as not all of Glasgow's SOX is old old, some of it being of 80s, 90s and early 00s vintage. Another little bit of googling brought me to this photo album taken in 1980: https://pro.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3 ... 225&RH=647

A little bit down there is a photo of a street nearly full of Alpha Threes. It's 1980 so it could be either SON or HPL realistically. There are almost no installations like this left in Glasgow, so they were either replaced with more modern HPS stock or they were merc that was replaced with SOX. Of course they could have been SON and replaced by SOX, as bizarre as that would be.

At this point its probably not unreasonable to assume that from around 1900 to 1960, Glasgow's lighting would be a mix of gas and electric lighting, with the former dwindling in numbers over time. First incandescent lighting, then perhaps some mercury, then what would appear to be a large scale SOX changeover between the 60s and 70s. Much of the SOX stock in Glasgow is very old, and between it being put in and present day there appears to have been a pause - at least in some areas. Modern SON/MH is present in some areas, mostly city centre or major roads, and LED is starting to come in but many parts look to have remained untouch for up to and beyond 30 years.

Coming back to the mystery "dust bin lid" lanterns that I saw up close today, I can confirm they were incandescent by the remains of the fitted lamp and were in service until at least the mid 60s going by street furniture in the background of a family photo. That is, the lantern type as a general - this specific installation may only have died 20-30 years ago. The style of them suggests 1930s-1950s to me - not much later because of the design cues. They have a utilitarian, almost austere feel - and not a more glamorous design that I would expect from something newer. So my guess is going to be roughly post [2nd world] war which may be when Glasgow did a mass adoption of Electric. The fact that many of the same columns and brackets (and overhead wires!) still remain in Glasgow today means they are really overdue a lighting stock upgrade.

This is a combination of the two above pictures with the details inset to the wider picture. You can clearly see the remains of what was probably a 3 or 500 Watt clear incandescent lamp which, from the remains, bears distinctions to GEC branded lamps of the time.

[scott125]

Right. Prepare for an essay!!

I went to Glasgow today and felt it'd be rude not to take an opportunity to try and get up close to these mysterious "dust bin lid" lanterns.

Looking at the GSV links provided, at least one of the lanterns nearest the road has disappeared between 2014 and now. Vandals possibly, or just the elements taking toll. I had expected to rock up to where the gate was, poke my camera over the wall with my longest lens on, and give it all it's got.

I was pleasantly surprised when I turned up to find the gate was open. I could see one or two people well beyond it so, as my old mate would say, I "brass necked it" and walked on in. The path is cobbled and overgrown from decades of abandonment. Towards the end of the pathway two of the old lanterns remain. Although several of the columns remain wired to each other, the supply from further on up has been cut.

Here is a link to a pic:

https://i886.photobucket.com/albums/ac70 ... b84fyx.jpg

And to the lantern itself up close:

https://i886.photobucket.com/albums/ac70 ... mgtbkp.jpg

As a reminder, this is the family photo from 1966 showing the same lantern that originally piqued my interest into how far back they go into Glasgow's lighting history: https://www.lighting-gallery.net/gallery ... os=-106492

Now, revisiting the history of Glasgow's lighting as a whole this may help putting together the puzzle.

I did some googling and happened upon a scanned copy of the Glasgow Herald with an article about Glasgow's street lighting - this one about the replacement of the last gas lamp. What I didn't realise until later on is the article was from September 1971! So until ~50 years ago, Glasgow was at least in small part lit by gas lighting. Although gas street lighting had disappeared at time of writing, lighting in stairways and tenement closes was stated as still partly gas, and this is corroborated by stories I've been told by my grandmother who left Glasgow not long before this.

The article goes on to give some key points of history of Glasgow's lighting. Lighting may have begun in Glasgow as far back as 1780, with 9 oil lamps between Tron Steeple and Stockwell Street. By 1815 there were over a thousand lamps, although it states that in those days general practice was for a servant to carry a lamp for you and light the way! By 1818 the first gas street lamp had been installed and the article suggests more followed soon after. I don't know whether this would be mains gas or whether the column bases contained individual tanks. The article states that in 1893 the first electric light was installed, with the labour force of the lighting department rising to 1500 (at the time of writing the article, it had dropped to 1100). At the time of writing the article states that 52,879 electric lights were in place.

A link to the scan is here: https://i886.photobucket.com/albums/ac70 ... cs5its.jpg

Up until recently I had been going on the assumption that Glasgow largely skipped mercury lighting, perhaps going from incandescent (or gas!) straight to SOX. The abundance of early SOX lanterns and very old concrete columns, along with sighting no old mercury stock at all appeared to support this.It was perhaps too big of an assumption though, as not all of Glasgow's SOX is old old, some of it being of 80s, 90s and early 00s vintage. Another little bit of googling brought me to this photo album taken in 1980: https://pro.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3 ... 225&RH=647

A little bit down there is a photo of a street nearly full of Alpha Threes. It's 1980 so it could be either SON or HPL realistically. There are almost no installations like this left in Glasgow, so they were either replaced with more modern HPS stock or they were merc that was replaced with SOX. Of course they could have been SON and replaced by SOX, as bizarre as that would be.

At this point its probably not unreasonable to assume that from around 1900 to 1960, Glasgow's lighting would be a mix of gas and electric lighting, with the former dwindling in numbers over time. First incandescent lighting, then perhaps some mercury, then what would appear to be a large scale SOX changeover between the 60s and 70s. Much of the SOX stock in Glasgow is very old, and between it being put in and present day there appears to have been a pause - at least in some areas. Modern SON/MH is present in some areas, mostly city centre or major roads, and LED is starting to come in but many parts look to have remained untouch for up to and beyond 30 years.

Coming back to the mystery "dust bin lid" lanterns that I saw up close today, I can confirm they were incandescent by the remains of the fitted lamp and were in service until at least the mid 60s going by street furniture in the background of a family photo. That is, the lantern type as a general - this specific installation may only have died 20-30 years ago. The style of them suggests 1930s-1950s to me - not much later because of the design cues. They have a utilitarian, almost austere feel - and not a more glamorous design that I would expect from something newer. So my guess is going to be roughly post [2nd world] war which may be when Glasgow did a mass adoption of Electric. The fact that many of the same columns and brackets (and overhead wires!) still remain in Glasgow today means they are really overdue a lighting stock upgrade.

This is a combination of the two above pictures with the details inset to the wider picture. You can clearly see the remains of what was probably a 3 or 500 Watt clear incandescent lamp which, from the remains, bears distinctions to GEC branded lamps of the time.

Very Interesting .
I think SOX replaced these en masse in 1970s , the lanterns you see with top entry on the old wired posts ! GEC blocks?
Yes lots of SOX in Glasgow , you still see Thorn Alphas often minus bowls
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.82794 ... 6656?hl=en

[trencheel303]

Ha! I must have visited all the wrong places I thought Thorn Alpha Threes in Glasgow were extinct. Pardon me for that. So unless they had a gear change then Glasgow was an earlyish adopter of SON. Nice!

[scott125]

Ha! I must have visited all the wrong places I thought Thorn Alpha Threes in Glasgow were extinct. Pardon me for that. So unless they had a gear change then Glasgow was an earlyish adopter of SON. Nice!

Theres few here and there particularly in southside , not seen any in Edinburgh in a long time .
Still loads of Thorn Alpha 8s which must be from 1980s .
Aslo a fair few wrtls which must date from 80s and 90s .
LED s replace even new stuff on main roads .

[scott125]

The MA90s look to be from the late 70s, and the Thorn Alpha 8s would be from the early 80s too.

Walked down gorbals st where the Alpha 8s are and the manholes said DW 82. Might mean 1982 they date from.
The MA90S say DW91 ,surely not look older .

[jon81]

Just bumping this thread, here are examples of the many SOX lanterns with the concrete columns in Pollokshields.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.84399 ... 6656?hl=en

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.84046 ... 6656?hl=en

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.84505 ... 6656?hl=en

Anyone know what these lanterns are?

[Robert Kilcoyne]

Just bumping this thread, here are examples of the many SOX lanterns with the concrete columns in Pollokshields.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.84399 ... 6656?hl=en

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.84046 ... 6656?hl=en

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.84505 ... 6656?hl=en

Anyone know what these lanterns are?

The second lantern is a GEC Z9455 (the top entry version of the GEC Z9454). The concrete columns were of the same design as those pictured some years ago in Gibraltar. The GEC Z9455 was very popular in Glasgow, and also used extensively on side streets in Edinburgh.

The first and third lanterns may be GEC Z9450's.