Unusual tin lantern installation

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traffic-light-man
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Unusual tin lantern installation

Post by traffic-light-man »

I stumbled across this image lately and thought it was worthy of a share here. As far as I'm aware, it's an original colour image rather than a recolour.

If you take a look at the signals at the end of Wellington Street, you'll notice they have a red aspect at the bottom, with green arrows either side, presumably to reinforce the 'no straight ahead' restriction. It also appears although the right turn arrow is not indicating priority in this instance. I'm fairly sure I've seen Chris584 mention this setup on the message boards in the past, but I don't think I've seen a picture of it before.

ImageStanding in Wellington Street (outside the Lyceum) looking across Waterloo Bridge, London 1966 by trainsandstuff, on Flickr
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Gareth
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Re: Unusual tin lantern installation

Post by Gareth »

How strange. Was this a weird one off, or was it standard practice for such situations back in the day?

Presumably the logic is to emphasise that you can't go straight, even though there's a road there.
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Chris584
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Re: Unusual tin lantern installation

Post by Chris584 »

You are right Simon, I have described this junction previously, although I might have got the street name wrong.
To access Waterloo Bridge ahead, you had to turn left and negotiate the Aldwych one way system and then turn left onto the bridge. At that left turn to the bridge was also the "DONT CROSS/CROSS NOW" lights (as opposed to the more common
"WAIT/CROSS" lights), that I mention a while back.
As far as I recall, the right turn arrow gave an unimpeded turn onto Strand, but I'm not 100% on that. Great to see the picture though, as it proves I didn't imagine it! 😂
Having looked at the picture again more closely, it appears that it was a free for all with the traffic from Waterloo Bridge after all!
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Gareth
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Re: Unusual tin lantern installation

Post by Gareth »

So was this accepted practice or an experiment? Perhaps they had trouble with traffic going straight and so came up with that to see if traffic responded better.

I said we'd normally use No Entry signs but the bridge obviously can be entered, just not directly.
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Re: Unusual tin lantern installation

Post by WHBM »

Photoshopped !

If you go to the Flickr original and enlarge it, the red "blobs" are larger than the signal lens. The blob on the right can be seen to be slightly overlapping the adjacent lamp standard. They are also far too pure compared to the other signal lights.

Straight ahead would be impractical because there is a pedestrian island in the way, with pedestrians on it.
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Re: Unusual tin lantern installation

Post by Gareth »

And why would anyone bother photoshopping that?

The red "blobs" do look bigger but I think this is an optical illusion, aided by the dimmer green arrow aspects immediately adjacent. Additionally, the overlapping of the lamp standard also applies to the right filter on the same head. These are all quite likely to do with the camera settings, lighting levels, the possibility that the photo is colourised and many other variables.
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Chris584
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Re: Unusual tin lantern installation

Post by Chris584 »

I can't say this was a standard set up. It may have evolved because at one time you probably could have gone straight on to the bridge, but when they implemented the Aldwych one way system, at the same time of opening up part of the tram tunnel to traffic to give direct access from Waterloo Bridge to Kingsway, the straight route was physically blocked by the kerb which formed the left turn on to the bridge, and also allowed for the pedestrian lights crossing. The lower red light was a plain red lens, the same size as the other lenses. Probably just camera exposure and/or film colour.
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traffic-light-man
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Re: Unusual tin lantern installation

Post by traffic-light-man »

The '57 TSRGD certainly doesn't show this as an option, and there's mention of the uppermost lamp being red and the lowermost lamp being green, so I doubt it was compliant. The only arrow combinations are shown below.

57tsrgd_copy.jpg
57tsrgd_copy.jpg (114.03 KiB) Viewed 1096 times

I'm fairly sure I've read something about substitute green arrows legally not standing up on their own merit until fairly recently, hence the prevalence of mandatory turn box signs with substitute green arrows in a lot of legacy instances, but I'm not sure if I've imagined that or not. If it's true, it could explain the wish to couple the green arrows with a red aspect (not using the word 'STOP') given there is the appearance of a route ahead, rather than the route being physically blocked by the lack of road.

I'm also not sure when substitute green arrows began appearing in the first place. It did cross my mind that it could be a possibility that this installation was a work-around for the fact substitute green arrows were not an option at some point, arrows always requiring a full-aspect to be lit alongside them.
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Re: Unusual tin lantern installation

Post by Gareth »

My feeling is that it's more to do with people bombing straight, not realising the road layout had changed. I recall tin lanterns at Prescot St facing London Rd, and they were the conventional setup, exactly the same as the mellors that are there now. Of course, they were installed later, in 1970.

Btw, are you sure the red lenses were blank? They do look it in the photo but often letters don't always show up if the camera doesn't have the aspect in hard focus.
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Re: Unusual tin lantern installation

Post by Chris584 »

Gareth, I can assure you the bottom red lenses were plain. I didn't live far from there as a child and regularly walked through Covent Garden and over Waterloo Bridge on Sunday mornings with my brother, dad, grandad and uncle while the womenfolk got the dinner on, with us out from under their feet, as they put it 😊
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Re: Unusual tin lantern installation

Post by Gareth »

Cool. Thanks for the info.

In some ways, it reminds me of what the Japanese would do in that situation. They'd leave the top red on and illuminate the arrows. Then it'd go amber on its own then back to red on its own. The bottom aspect would either be absent or a dummy. Also, the signal would be horizontal in most of Japan, although some areas hang them vertically; Hokkaido being the most notable example.
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Re: Unusual tin lantern installation

Post by jonnyf90 »

For comparison, here's the same shot in 2014:
https://goo.gl/maps/bzA9W4EFUYwoYz7a6

Before it was completely pedestrianised:

https://goo.gl/maps/qc8Ac8xDyTaxd4EVA

Worth noting there's still traffic lights there for cyclists. Not entirely sure how many actually adhere to them though.

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skiddaw05
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Re: Unusual tin lantern installation

Post by skiddaw05 »

Never mind the traffic lights, what about those drop dead gorgeous street lights on the original photo?
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the cheesecake man
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Re: Unusual tin lantern installation

Post by the cheesecake man »

To stray even further off topic did whoever decided to put red at the bottom think about colour blind drivers? :facepalm:
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traffic-light-man
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Re: Unusual tin lantern installation

Post by traffic-light-man »

jonnyf90 wrote: Wed Apr 07, 2021 00:23Worth noting there's still traffic lights there for cyclists. Not entirely sure how many actually adhere to them though.
It was also a site of Mellors with 300mm amber and green cycles until the Elites went in, which I'm sure Chris5156 photographed many years ago.
the cheesecake man wrote: Wed Apr 07, 2021 13:20 To stray even further off topic did whoever decided to put red at the bottom think about colour blind drivers? :facepalm:
Well, in this case, it doesn't really matter, because traffic is able to travel in the only allowed directions anyway due to the green arrows. The actual true stop aspect is still at the top with the 'STOP' lettering.
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