Unique Traffic Signals

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traffic-light-man
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Re: Unique Traffic Signals

Post by traffic-light-man »

jervi wrote: Sun Jun 06, 2021 14:50 Pegasus crossings are not that uncommon, just find where a popular bridleway crosses over a somewhat busy road.
The ones that came to mind immediately were the ones along the A494 here and here, which are as you describe, though the latter exhibits some pretty poor design elements.

This one is an oddity, being a uni-directional crossing (the opposite direction uses regular RAGs and high level PBUs as the horses would be on the carriageway on that approach) and also in a particularly urban area. There's this regular pegasus crossing not far a way, too, also exhibiting an unusual backdrop. And to complete the set, there's these (one and two) Pegacans (Pegasus + Toucan, no? :lol: ) as part of the same bridleway network (I think).

There's also this (terrible photography aside) LED one using old-school full LED arrays, which must be pretty rare. I can't for the life of me remember where it was other than it was in West Yorkshire somewhere, probably heading towards Harrogate. I wouldn't be surprised if it's been replaced by now. Edit: it was here, and yes, it's been replaced.

DSCF3970.JPG

What must be rare now are Equestrian crossings fitted with Mellors...
Nathan_A_RF wrote: Sun Jun 06, 2021 21:06 Can't get a link on my phone to street view, but in Selby on Recreation Road there are a set of what look like very old signals for the passage under the former ECML. Not many of these about I'm sure.
Good old Forest City signal heads.

As we've discussed not too long ago, they're fairly difficult to date because they've been in production for so long without any real altering of the design and they don't age very well. Interesting one being a sole signal head per approach as well.

Given the installation and signal type, presumably this is a private road and the signals are privately maintained?
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Re: Unique Traffic Signals

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A typical London traffic signal, with no border, in York: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.95386 ... 8192?hl=en
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Re: Unique Traffic Signals

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OliverH wrote: Thu Jun 10, 2021 13:21 A typical London traffic signal, with no border, in York: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.95386 ... 8192?hl=en
Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but backing boards are not required on signals in an area where the speed limit is < 40 (or is it <= 40, I'm not sure). However, London is the only area I can think of where this is usually taken advantage of, presumably with a cost saving resulting from it. I'd like to see a lot more councils doing this in their urban areas, it reduces clutter considerably, but retention of boards everywhere seems to be a hang-over from when Mellor heads were the universal norm, and were designed to have their boards fitted all the time. Anyone who has seen a Mellor head without its boards will observe how ill-proportioned it is, this is only worsened by then applying white tape around the perimeter of the head in the absence of the board. Prior to Mellors, SGE and tin lantern signals rarely had boards in urban areas, so this is more of a reversion to how things used to be.
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Re: Unique Traffic Signals

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this crossing could have been installed when peek took over page signals as there are rage pedestrian signals and peek vehicle signals.
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Re: Unique Traffic Signals

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Chris Bertram wrote: Thu Jun 10, 2021 13:35
OliverH wrote: Thu Jun 10, 2021 13:21 A typical London traffic signal, with no border, in York: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.95386 ... 8192?hl=en
Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but backing boards are not required on signals in an area where the speed limit is < 40 (or is it <= 40, I'm not sure). However, London is the only area I can think of where this is usually taken advantage of, presumably with a cost saving resulting from it. I'd like to see a lot more councils doing this in their urban areas, it reduces clutter considerably, but retention of boards everywhere seems to be a hang-over from when Mellor heads were the universal norm, and were designed to have their boards fitted all the time. Anyone who has seen a Mellor head without its boards will observe how ill-proportioned it is, this is only worsened by then applying white tape around the perimeter of the head in the absence of the board. Prior to Mellors, SGE and tin lantern signals rarely had boards in urban areas, so this is more of a reversion to how things used to be.
In Leeds, the Talent signals have tape instead of a backing board whereas in Bradford they do.
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Re: Unique Traffic Signals

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OliverH wrote: Thu Jun 10, 2021 13:41 this crossing could have been installed when peek took over page signals as there are rage pedestrian signals and peek vehicle signals.
The Peek heads do seem to bleach quite badly over time, while on their backing boards the white borders fade to invisibility. It's a shame, because otherwise the Peek heads are actually quite neat. Birmingham had (have?) the practice of not using Peek's own boards, but making their own featuring mitred fluorescent white stick-on borders. However, these have proved to fall apart in various places, looking worse than if they were absent.
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Re: Unique Traffic Signals

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Chris Bertram wrote: Thu Jun 10, 2021 13:35
OliverH wrote: Thu Jun 10, 2021 13:21 A typical London traffic signal, with no border, in York: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.95386 ... 8192?hl=en
Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but backing boards are not required on signals in an area where the speed limit is < 40 (or is it <= 40, I'm not sure). However, London is the only area I can think of where this is usually taken advantage of, presumably with a cost saving resulting from it. I'd like to see a lot more councils doing this in their urban areas, it reduces clutter considerably, but retention of boards everywhere seems to be a hang-over from when Mellor heads were the universal norm, and were designed to have their boards fitted all the time. Anyone who has seen a Mellor head without its boards will observe how ill-proportioned it is, this is only worsened by then applying white tape around the perimeter of the head in the absence of the board. Prior to Mellors, SGE and tin lantern signals rarely had boards in urban areas, so this is more of a reversion to how things used to be.
I think London actually initially used mellors in the same way as the rest of the country. Pretty much any photo or video containing a mellor installation in London from the 1970s shows all signal heads having backing boards and grey poles. This seemed to change to no backing boards and black poles in the early 80s. But yes, London was not a great user of backing boards pre-mellor. Other places were, however. I'm pretty sure Liverpool was installing backing boards on tin lanterns as standard towards the end, although they were ommitted on signal heads that had box signs, filter/indicative arrows or two heads on the same pole facing the same direction due to lack of space. Also, where two heads were on the pole at a 45 degree angle, there was only space for one backing board and so the signal facing the secondary direction had to do without. Some other authorities were more creative, lopping bits off to make the board fit and even (I think it was from old footage of Brighton) cutting up two boards to make an L-shape to encorporate a filter arrow.

Btw, I don't think I agree with you about contemporary signal heads looking better without the backing board. Helios can sort of pull it off, looking something akin to a modern tin lantern, but the others not so much.
Last edited by Gareth on Thu Jun 10, 2021 20:19, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Unique Traffic Signals

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OliverH wrote: Thu Jun 10, 2021 13:41 this crossing could have been installed when peek took over page signals as there are rage pedestrian signals and peek vehicle signals.
I must say, I still don't think the reduction in size of the pedestrian aspects was an improvement. The red/green man symbols just don't have the same clarity. You've got to remember, even from the beginning, they were the larger, even on pre-mellor signals.
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Re: Unique Traffic Signals

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Gareth wrote: Thu Jun 10, 2021 20:16
OliverH wrote: Thu Jun 10, 2021 13:41 this crossing could have been installed when peek took over page signals as there are rage pedestrian signals and peek vehicle signals.
I must say, I still don't think the reduction in size of the pedestrian aspects was an improvement. The red/green man symbols just don't have the same clarity. You've got to remember, even from the beginning, they were the larger, even on pre-mellor signals.
On SGEs ped signals of the worded type were simply additional lights fixed to the side of the pole with the WAIT and CROSS or CROSS NOW (white on black) legends. Tin lantern signals had a head with no middle signal but the same legends top and bottom. The major change came when the X-Way crossings were introduced and red man/green man symbols replaced the worded signals - the symbols weren't felt to fit the old signal types, so a box arrangement replaced them with the red man above the green man. When Mellor signals finally came in, they had two-aspect ped signals with 300mm lights available. 300mm lights were also preferred for green arrows and box signs. But when newer signal models came in, 200mm seems to have been preferred by almost all manufacturers. To be fair, this seems in line with practice in other countries, apart from France which is a law unto itself where traffic signal design is concerned, and is also where they prefer side-by-side ped signals to above/below.
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Re: Unique Traffic Signals

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Chris Bertram wrote: Thu Jun 10, 2021 13:35
OliverH wrote: Thu Jun 10, 2021 13:21 A typical London traffic signal, with no border, in York: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.95386 ... 8192?hl=en
Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but backing boards are not required on signals in an area where the speed limit is < 40 (or is it <= 40, I'm not sure). However, London is the only area I can think of where this is usually taken advantage of, presumably with a cost saving resulting from it. I'd like to see a lot more councils doing this in their urban areas, it reduces clutter considerably, but retention of boards everywhere seems to be a hang-over from when Mellor heads were the universal norm, and were designed to have their boards fitted all the time. Anyone who has seen a Mellor head without its boards will observe how ill-proportioned it is, this is only worsened by then applying white tape around the perimeter of the head in the absence of the board. Prior to Mellors, SGE and tin lantern signals rarely had boards in urban areas, so this is more of a reversion to how things used to be.
Lincolnshire has started to replace signals heads without the border is urban areas.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.22458 ... 384!8i8192
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.22662 ... 384!8i8192
And a few other places that are not on GSV yet.
It does look neater
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Re: Unique Traffic Signals

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Not convinced, personally. Also, crank poles are a pet hate of mine. They used to be used exceptionally but are now more and more common. Ugly things.
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Re: Unique Traffic Signals

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This junction has just had its lights upgraded but not completely like for like.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.56183 ... 384!8i8192

The signal on the right has broadly been replaced with a similar one, with the exception being that the right turn filter arrow is now to the right of the green ball, rather than below. However, there is now an additional signal, with a right turn filter arrow on the left hand side of the road (just around where the signal is by the silver car)! It seems very odd (to me) to have a right turn filter arrow on the left hand side of a (3 lane) road, when you can't turn right from any of the 2 lanes on the left - maybe that's just me? Having said that, people tried to turn right from the middle lane with the old signals and an only imagine that the "upgrade" has made it worse.
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Re: Unique Traffic Signals

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A few weeks ago, and the main change was changing the farsides to nearsides, I think including full Puffin detectors :) I'll be going through there in a couple of hours, funnily enough...

Because I almost always turn right there to head home, I rarely look at the primary head, but I'll look out for it tonight if I have headspace. I don't see the point of putting the filter arrow on the primary signal - I can understand that at junctions where the right turn has a full 3-aspect head and there is no splitter island, but not where the green arrow is just a reminder that the right turn is protected.
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Re: Unique Traffic Signals

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It's becoming more common to have primary right turn indicative arrows, though I've no idea why as it's essentially redundant, particularly if it's a standard early cut-off arrangement.

Having said that, Liverpool has a fair few primary right turn indicative arrows, but generally only on sites that run with the less-common late start arrangements, so that's perhaps why.

I think what's becoming most noticeable, as I think Gareth has mentioned several times recently, is the use of offside duplicate primaries on single carriageway approaches, but then also having every signal head showing the same arrangement. In a lot of cases, it's unnecessary and sometimes confusing clutter, and I'm not entirely sure what's triggered it.
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Re: Unique Traffic Signals

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I don't think I've seen this before: traffic lights on a dual a carriageway with heads for for both directions sprouting elegantly from the same pillar on the central reservation.
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Re: Unique Traffic Signals

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the cheesecake man wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 13:35 I don't think I've seen this before: traffic lights on a dual a carriageway with heads for for both directions sprouting elegantly from the same pillar on the central reservation.
Bradford seems to go its own way. Such as this span-wire arrangement. Is there anything similar in any other city?
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Re: Unique Traffic Signals

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the cheesecake man wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 13:35 I don't think I've seen this before: traffic lights on a dual a carriageway with heads for for both directions sprouting elegantly from the same pillar on the central reservation.
It's the traffic light equivalent of the Angel of the North!
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Re: Unique Traffic Signals

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Chris Bertram wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 16:26
the cheesecake man wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 13:35 I don't think I've seen this before: traffic lights on a dual a carriageway with heads for for both directions sprouting elegantly from the same pillar on the central reservation.
Bradford seems to go its own way. Such as this span-wire arrangement. Is there anything similar in any other city?
That whole set up is so strange, what's with the Irish style pedestrian heads? With duplicate nearside ped signals too? (Sorry if I got that terminology wrong 😂)
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Re: Unique Traffic Signals

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Chris Bertram wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 16:26 Such as this span-wire arrangement. Is there anything similar in any other city?
:yikes: That looks precarious. I'd be a bit nervous stopping under it. One strong gust of wind...
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Re: Unique Traffic Signals

Post by Nathan_A_RF »

Not sure where to post this but here seems fitting. There are a couple things to point out at Selby Swing Bridge. One is a unique signal in that is is attached to this house as opposed to its own pole. Secondly here, there are these push button units that I can't think of what they're for. There's one on either side of the bridge on the nearside wig-wag.
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