wallmeerkat wrote: ↑Tue Feb 06, 2024 13:22
M2(NI) Ballymena Bypass has a wonky sign veering to the left.
Perhaps signifying that the mainline veers to the left, perhaps a relic of when the motorway was intended to go straight on (you can see some abandoned tarmac to the right)
Think what staggers me more is NI still has concrete sign legs without any barrier protection!
We certainly do. Most concrete legs have now been barriered off, to be fair, but of course the one thing we didn’t have at any time was concrete prongs. I remember floodlights standing in the verge pointing up at the signs in the days before retroreflectivity.
Verge mounted floodlights became standard in GB in the 1970s too when the death prongs were deemed too much.
There are still one or two legacy "overlights" too, which look extremely chunky but at least wouldn't kill you.
Like the one WMK posted, which looks weird. My personal supposition is that NI baulked at the price of the death prongs compared to a conventional concrete post and decided it was cheaper to mount floods on the ground.
You do notice differences across the network, roughly matching boundaries of DFBO contracts (what design? what build?). I think all remaining concrete posts between M1 J8 and M2 J5 are barriered off now, all sign faces have been replaced to current TSM standards (1 mile sign matching 1/2 mile signs), and all junctions have gantries. Further west? Not a chance.
The M2 Ballymena Bypass has new orange phone kiosks mounted on the original 1960s large phone pillars and no numbers on the marker posts. I think it falls outside the DBFO but the A8(M) does not.
Think what staggers me more is NI still has concrete sign legs without any barrier protection!
We certainly do. Most concrete legs have now been barriered off, to be fair, but of course the one thing we didn’t have at any time was concrete prongs. I remember floodlights standing in the verge pointing up at the signs in the days before retroreflectivity.
Still the occasional concrete legged lit sign that hasn't been phased out, especially in the outer wilds of the motorway network
I suspect it's been a long time since those worked! I vaguely remember motorway signs in unlit sections of motorway being lit up at night but it must be over 20 years ago (and maybe closer to 30).
