SOX street lights, which areas still have them?

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Truvelo
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Re: SOX street lights, which areas still have them?

Post by Truvelo »

StockburyRoundabout wrote: Sat Jan 01, 2022 20:56
Chris5156 wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 09:42 The SOX lights on the sliproads at M25 J12 - which were original to the opening of the interchange in the 70s - have finally been switched off, and new LEDs are going up at the moment. They were still working until about a month ago, except for the southbound-to-westbound slip where they'd been out for quite a long time.
Once the SOX is gone from this area, it will truly be the end of an era. Started when the M3 was upgraded to Smart Motorway, removing the columns on the M3 carriageway completely and replacing columns on some slips.

Fond memories of the familiar orange glow of the SOX on the slips (and once upon a time the main M3 carriageway). That's been a sight for as long as a remember and they predate my existence by around 25 years at my estimation. The charm of SOX is something that we'll probably never see again.

I presume this replacement also includes the SOX still present on the verges next to the M25 carriageway on the approach to the slips?
These lanterns were to be saved by someone from a streetlighting group and offered to collectors at cost price. I put my name down for one a month ago but have heard nothing since. Although GEC Bricks were relatively common in areas where full cut off is required the M25 examples had the gear in shoe which made them quite unique.

I took a bunch of photos of them 21 years ago expecting them to be replaced but I never thought they would last this long. The catenary on the M25 in the distance went years ago.
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Re: SOX street lights, which areas still have them?

Post by StockburyRoundabout »

Truvelo wrote: Sat Jan 01, 2022 21:40
StockburyRoundabout wrote: Sat Jan 01, 2022 20:56
Chris5156 wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 09:42 The SOX lights on the sliproads at M25 J12 - which were original to the opening of the interchange in the 70s - have finally been switched off, and new LEDs are going up at the moment. They were still working until about a month ago, except for the southbound-to-westbound slip where they'd been out for quite a long time.
Once the SOX is gone from this area, it will truly be the end of an era. Started when the M3 was upgraded to Smart Motorway, removing the columns on the M3 carriageway completely and replacing columns on some slips.

Fond memories of the familiar orange glow of the SOX on the slips (and once upon a time the main M3 carriageway). That's been a sight for as long as a remember and they predate my existence by around 25 years at my estimation. The charm of SOX is something that we'll probably never see again.

I presume this replacement also includes the SOX still present on the verges next to the M25 carriageway on the approach to the slips?
These lanterns were to be saved by someone from a streetlighting group and offered to collectors at cost price. I put my name down for one a month ago but have heard nothing since. Although GEC Bricks were relatively common in areas where full cut off is required the M25 examples had the gear in shoe which made them quite unique.

I took a bunch of photos of them 21 years ago expecting them to be replaced but I never thought they would last this long. The catenary on the M25 in the distance went years ago.
I have absolutely no memory of the Catenary lighting and I believe Trafficvisions now illuminate said stretch.

It wouldn't have been a shock for those to be replaced en masse in the 2000s as they would have been getting on for 30 years during that decade, reaching that age in 2006! It's a pleasant surprise that such a large installation has made it into 2022 - 46 years after installation. Although, some could argue replacement has been a long time coming.
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Re: SOX street lights, which areas still have them?

Post by scott125 »

I didn't realise the GEC bricks on the M3 slips dated from the 1970s, I thought they were 1980s!

Glasgow still has a lot of SOX especially on the side streets.I noticed a few SOX lanterns in Edinburgh near Waverley Railway station .
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Re: SOX street lights, which areas still have them?

Post by Patrick Harper »

Most of the remaining Bricks at Thorpe were installed in 1976, but not all of them would have been in use until the M25 was extended further south. The gear-in-head MA60s on the M25 southern approach presumably date from 1980.
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Re: SOX street lights, which areas still have them?

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Patrick Harper wrote: Mon Jan 03, 2022 18:05 Most of the remaining Bricks at Thorpe were installed in 1976, but not all of them would have been in use until the M25 was extended further south. The gear-in-head MA60s on the M25 southern approach presumably date from 1980.
I'd possibly suggest early 90s when the M25 was widened there. MA60s were still being installed on motorways well into the mid 90s.
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Re: SOX street lights, which areas still have them?

Post by ManomayLR »

Bryn666 wrote: Wed Jan 05, 2022 11:27
Patrick Harper wrote: Mon Jan 03, 2022 18:05 Most of the remaining Bricks at Thorpe were installed in 1976, but not all of them would have been in use until the M25 was extended further south. The gear-in-head MA60s on the M25 southern approach presumably date from 1980.
I'd possibly suggest early 90s when the M25 was widened there. MA60s were still being installed on motorways well into the mid 90s.
Surprising, you'd think they'd have transitioned fully to HPS by then.
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Re: SOX street lights, which areas still have them?

Post by Patrick Harper »

EpicChef wrote: Wed Jan 05, 2022 12:20
Bryn666 wrote: Wed Jan 05, 2022 11:27
Patrick Harper wrote: Mon Jan 03, 2022 18:05 Most of the remaining Bricks at Thorpe were installed in 1976, but not all of them would have been in use until the M25 was extended further south. The gear-in-head MA60s on the M25 southern approach presumably date from 1980.
I'd possibly suggest early 90s when the M25 was widened there. MA60s were still being installed on motorways well into the mid 90s.
Surprising, you'd think they'd have transitioned fully to HPS by then.
The last large scheme employing SOX on the trunk network was probably that on the A40 Long Lane junction 'bypass' in 1994, using Bricks, which would have been very unusual at the time. That road scheme also relit the original Long Lane junction with MRL6's so Siemens was the sole supplier for the lighting there for whatever reason.

Not far behind is the M61/M62 (now M60)/A666 complex, I think the MA60s there date from 1994 as that was when the M62 was widened to the east of that junction.
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Re: SOX street lights, which areas still have them?

Post by Bryn666 »

Patrick Harper wrote: Wed Jan 05, 2022 13:38
EpicChef wrote: Wed Jan 05, 2022 12:20
Bryn666 wrote: Wed Jan 05, 2022 11:27

I'd possibly suggest early 90s when the M25 was widened there. MA60s were still being installed on motorways well into the mid 90s.
Surprising, you'd think they'd have transitioned fully to HPS by then.
The last large scheme employing SOX on the trunk network was probably that on the A40 Long Lane junction 'bypass' in 1994, using Bricks, which would have been very unusual at the time. That road scheme also relit the original Long Lane junction with MRL6's so Siemens was the sole supplier for the lighting there for whatever reason.

Not far behind is the M61/M62 (now M60)/A666 complex, I think the MA60s there date from 1994 as that was when the M62 was widened to the east of that junction.
The verge lighting replacement scheme on the M62 and M61 as was was mainly to replace heavily corroded Cohen Brothers type columns which have a major design flaw that can lead to the columns cracking around the door and collapsing. The catenary held on until 1998 and survived the narrow lane widening between J12-15, east of there was conventional widening apart from under J17.
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Re: SOX street lights, which areas still have them?

Post by Norfolktolancashire »

I noted a nice stretch of these on the outskirts of Tamworth the other day, three quarter height?

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.6500828 ... 384!8i8192
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Re: SOX street lights, which areas still have them?

Post by Patrick Harper »

Hertfordshire CC was doing similar SOX-for-SOX schemes around 2003, this road used to have GEC Z9554M's on taller columns, akin to the stock here. How do I know? Well I used to be taken up here for swimming lessons when I was very young. :P

My favourite is what was achieved here. When this road opened in the 80s it had alternating columns on both sides all the way to the Piccotts End roundabout. Again, around 2003, the council decided it needed a parallel footpath and there wasn't quite enough space to retain the lighting columns on part of it, so they filled in the gaps on the other side of the carriageway. They managed to procure brackets that matched the existing stock, but then painted the columns green...I guess it seemed inevitable at the time that the older columns would be repainted somewhere down the line, but then the recession happened, new government, riots etc., and priorities changed.

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Re: SOX street lights, which areas still have them?

Post by Truvelo »

My favourite example in Hertfordshire is this where the old and new columns still remain and has been like this for as long as I can remember.

https://goo.gl/maps/a2C7aDZ6iY8hkxGw6
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Re: SOX street lights, which areas still have them?

Post by Chris5156 »

Truvelo wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 13:31 My favourite example in Hertfordshire is this where the old and new columns still remain and has been like this for as long as I can remember.

https://goo.gl/maps/a2C7aDZ6iY8hkxGw6
That looks a bit like nobody is sure who's responsible. The part under motorway restrictions has new LED lighting, presumably put up by NH/HE/HA. The side road to Bricket Wood has Herts CC standard LED lighting from the recent rollout across the county. But the length of sliproad that's all-purpose has neither, which suggests that both authorities think the other one is responsible.
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Re: SOX street lights, which areas still have them?

Post by Darren »

Chris5156 wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 09:42 The SOX lights on the sliproads at M25 J12 - which were original to the opening of the interchange in the 70s - have finally been switched off, and new LEDs are going up at the moment. They were still working until about a month ago, except for the southbound-to-westbound slip where they'd been out for quite a long time.
FWIW, the old lights on the sliproads coming from the M3 (northbound) to the M25 (anticlockwise) are still very much in use - or they were last Sunday, early in the morning. It'll be strange when they finally go!
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Re: SOX street lights, which areas still have them?

Post by StockburyRoundabout »

Darren wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 09:42
Chris5156 wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 09:42 The SOX lights on the sliproads at M25 J12 - which were original to the opening of the interchange in the 70s - have finally been switched off, and new LEDs are going up at the moment. They were still working until about a month ago, except for the southbound-to-westbound slip where they'd been out for quite a long time.
FWIW, the old lights on the sliproads coming from the M3 (northbound) to the M25 (anticlockwise) are still very much in use - or they were last Sunday, early in the morning. It'll be strange when they finally go!
I went past Thorpe Interchange last night and the only slip that didn’t have SOX was the M25 anti-clockwise off-slip, which has now had new columns installed with post top LEDs, but these were not in use at the time.
The rest of the slip roads, including the M25 anti-clockwise on-slip you referred to, still had all of the SOX lighting intact and in use as far as I could see.
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Re: SOX street lights, which areas still have them?

Post by ManomayLR »

Very sadly it is a matter of time for all remaining LPS installations.

I go past a housing colony next to Stirling Corner quite often (Morrisons roundabout where the M1 J3 link was supposed to go) and there appears to be what looks like LPS there, but at times I've been able to make out the characteristic dot pattern of LED and I'm wondering if they've actually switched to narrow-band amber LEDs (that look similar to LPS)?
I couldn't definitively make out and the only real way to tell is when they switch on (whether they go through pink to yellow or if they just come on straight away at full brightness).
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Re: SOX street lights, which areas still have them?

Post by Patrick Harper »

The thing with SOX is that its selling point was meant to be its class-leading efficiency, and the wavelength of its light was close to that which humans are most sensitive to under photopic conditions. But the lights are actually used in scotopic conditions where 589nm is quite a long way off from ideal. Its monochromatic light did give good contrast for sure, and it was possibly more visible in fog but I can't find a reliable source for that claim...but its normalised efficiency (taking scotopic content into account) was actually worse than MBF lamps at about 61 lumens per watt. If anything, we should have skipped SOX altogether for safety-critical contexts and switched directly to HPS back in the 1970s, but I guess research wasn't quite up to snuff back then.

Were there any applications where SOX was actually useful in retrospective? Places with nearby observatories was one, but perhaps the ends of cul-de-sacs, residential roads with few junctions and footpaths, where suppressing melatonin in the dark would probably provide a social benefit in...less harmonious neighbourhoods. Unfortunately blueish lights contribute more to sky glow, even from cut-off fixtures, but there hasn't been too much research into the environmental cost of this so we don't know for sure whether it negates the safety advantage. In the meantime, legislation has to follow from what we know now and the lights being installed on the streets follow from that.
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Re: SOX street lights, which areas still have them?

Post by RJDG14 »

Truvelo wrote: Sat Jan 01, 2022 21:40
StockburyRoundabout wrote: Sat Jan 01, 2022 20:56
Chris5156 wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 09:42 The SOX lights on the sliproads at M25 J12 - which were original to the opening of the interchange in the 70s - have finally been switched off, and new LEDs are going up at the moment. They were still working until about a month ago, except for the southbound-to-westbound slip where they'd been out for quite a long time.
Once the SOX is gone from this area, it will truly be the end of an era. Started when the M3 was upgraded to Smart Motorway, removing the columns on the M3 carriageway completely and replacing columns on some slips.

Fond memories of the familiar orange glow of the SOX on the slips (and once upon a time the main M3 carriageway). That's been a sight for as long as a remember and they predate my existence by around 25 years at my estimation. The charm of SOX is something that we'll probably never see again.

I presume this replacement also includes the SOX still present on the verges next to the M25 carriageway on the approach to the slips?
These lanterns were to be saved by someone from a streetlighting group and offered to collectors at cost price. I put my name down for one a month ago but have heard nothing since. Although GEC Bricks were relatively common in areas where full cut off is required the M25 examples had the gear in shoe which made them quite unique.

I took a bunch of photos of them 21 years ago expecting them to be replaced but I never thought they would last this long. The catenary on the M25 in the distance went years ago.
Was this taken in 2000 or 2001? It looks to have been taken on an early digital camera.

Is there a reason why cantenary lighting used to be used on some stretches of motorway/dual carriageway, but isn't anymore? I find the appearance of old lighting more interesting and varied than modern LED lights. May I also ask if there are any areas of the UK where there hasn't yet been any mass LED replacement of existing lights? I know that quite a lot of places began to replace their sodium stock en-masse about 2 years ago, though some parts of the South East had been doing so as far back as about 2014.

I vaugley recall seeing a couple of quite interesting looking sodium (I think high pressure, but they could have been low pressure) central reservation lights on the M4 at the junction with the M25 in 2006. There was also a stretch of differently designed interesting looking lights (I think the lampshades were round) on the M4 a bit to the west around Windsor/Slough. According to Street View, these had been replaced by 2008.
Last edited by RJDG14 on Sat Jan 22, 2022 15:58, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: SOX street lights, which areas still have them?

Post by Truvelo »

RJDG14 wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 15:45
Truvelo wrote: Sat Jan 01, 2022 21:40
StockburyRoundabout wrote: Sat Jan 01, 2022 20:56
Once the SOX is gone from this area, it will truly be the end of an era. Started when the M3 was upgraded to Smart Motorway, removing the columns on the M3 carriageway completely and replacing columns on some slips.

Fond memories of the familiar orange glow of the SOX on the slips (and once upon a time the main M3 carriageway). That's been a sight for as long as a remember and they predate my existence by around 25 years at my estimation. The charm of SOX is something that we'll probably never see again.

I presume this replacement also includes the SOX still present on the verges next to the M25 carriageway on the approach to the slips?
These lanterns were to be saved by someone from a streetlighting group and offered to collectors at cost price. I put my name down for one a month ago but have heard nothing since. Although GEC Bricks were relatively common in areas where full cut off is required the M25 examples had the gear in shoe which made them quite unique.

I took a bunch of photos of them 21 years ago expecting them to be replaced but I never thought they would last this long. The catenary on the M25 in the distance went years ago.
Was this taken in 2000 or 2001? It looks to have been taken on an early digital camera.
I took this in 2001 with an Olympus C2020 Zoom which was a pretty decent camera in its day.
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Re: SOX street lights, which areas still have them?

Post by Gareth »

Patrick Harper wrote: Wed Jan 05, 2022 13:38The last large scheme employing SOX on the trunk network was probably that on the A40 Long Lane junction 'bypass' in 1994, using Bricks, which would have been very unusual at the time.
I'm surprised bricks were still being installed that late. Old stock? I assumed they were discontinued around 1990. Certainly, it was by around then when Liverpool stopped using them.
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Re: SOX street lights, which areas still have them?

Post by Little Owl »

I have to report that the surviving section of MA60 street lights on the M1 between Junction 5 and 6 have been removed.
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