Double secondary signals

[traffic-light-man]

Hi All,

Just wondering if this was a thing done elsewhere, or whether it was unique to Merseyside...

There used to be a lot of sites where there were two secondary 4-aspect RAGGA signals next to each other. Most that I remember have been replaced, however the following ones still exist.

Townsend Ave, Clubmoor
Valley Road, Fazakerley
Longmoor Lane, Fazakerley

AFAIK, they were all installed under Merseyside UTC.

This set is actually very recent, only installed in the last few months. I think I'd have banned the turn, given the surrounding road structure, though I think it's been installed to allow buses to turn to a local Academy/BSF school that's not long opened just down the road.

[M4Mark]

Hi All,

Just wondering if this was a thing done elsewhere, or whether it was unique to Merseyside...

There used to be a lot of sites where there were two secondary 4-aspect RAGGA signals next to each other.

I think that's unique to your area, only time you generally get two secondarys near each other on a central island is for seperate phases.

[thetrafficlightman]

What im thinking is that.one is to warn the 3 lanes and the other to warn the lane that wants to turn right

[boing_uk]

Seems a little bit of overkill to me. Why pay to run more equipment than necessary?

At about £50 a year per lantern to run in electricity, the less equipment on the street, the better as far as my revenue budget is concerned.

[Conekicker]

In all three cases, the width of the central reserve might physically require the second signal for right turning traffic that might not be able to see the first one, having travelled out of it's field of view? You don't want to be looking back to try see what condition the first signal is in if you are also looking at oncoming traffic for either a gap or to see if it has stopped as their signal turns red. If that makes sense?

[traffic-light-man]

Seems a little bit of overkill to me. Why pay to run more equipment than necessary?

At about £50 a year per lantern to run in electricity, the less equipment on the street, the better as far as my revenue budget is concerned.

It does indeed, though I suppose I wouldn't have even batted an eyelid if it was a closely associated and a far-side that had been installed - that's also not too uncommon around these parts.

In all three cases, the width of the central reserve might physically require the second signal for right turning traffic that might not be able to see the first one, having travelled out of it's field of view? You don't want to be looking back to try see what condition the first signal is in if you are also looking at oncoming traffic for either a gap or to see if it has stopped as their signal turns red. If that makes sense?

You could be correct there. It's something I hadn't particularly noticed, probably because such wide central reservations are normal on a lot of Liverpool's dual carriageways.

[boing_uk]

To he fair though, there is no need for excessive design, such as inappropriate tall poles, over-use of signal heads (see M65 j6 for poor examples of such) or more secondaries than necessary.

I did have a quick scout at the google link.... IMO it's an unnecessary extravagance, presumably to overcome some imagined risk of death....

[traffic-light-man]

Indeed.

There was a phase of installing closely associated and farside secondaries in some places, though that seemed to give way to using left & right side secondaries pretty quickly.

[traffic-light-man]

Just reviving this thread as I was thinking about another type of double-secondaries and wondered if this was also commonplace elsewhere.

This time, I'm thinking about the apparently-Lancastrian trait of having secondaries on the back of both primary signals where there are centre islands. I've never really been able to work out specifically why this technique was used, other than perhaps to increase conspicuity in certain locations, but it's something I think I've only really noticed in Lancashire and Greater Manchester.

They're disappearing rather rapidly, but there's some still out there, such as these ones or these ones. For some older now-gone examples, see these and these.

Was this arrangement common in any other areas?

[tom66]

In my opinion that arrangement is dangerous on a dark night, you may mistake the two green lamps and open road (say without cars) as a cue that it is a driveable lane. A risk that would present itself if e.g. turning and unfamiliar with the area.