End of the road for Mellor signals?

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jcpren
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End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by jcpren »

Lately, I've noticed more and more hoodless Mellor signal heads in South Lanarkshire. It seems that lost or damaged hoods are no longer being replaced (even to the extent that vandalised aspects are being fitted with new lenses, but not hoods).

My best guess at what's going on is that they're finding it hard to source parts for the ageing equipment. Either that, or they have plans to replace all remaining Mellor heads en masse before too long, and don't want to go to any unnecessary expense.

Is this type of thing happening anywhere else? And do we think the council is wise, knowingly to do without hoods on some of their signals?
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by boing_uk »

Parts are a bit hard to come by nowadays. I have in the past year had to replace whole lanterns for want of a single aspect. There is more rocking horse poo in the world than Page signal head parts.

Having said that, hoods I beleive are interchangeable between modular and mellor, but dont quote me on that.

Although to be honest, hoods are not the greatest worry for me day to day, and certainly not at the moment, seeing as we've had near £50,000 worth of damage done this weekend.

Yes, £50,000. :shock:

Two sites off (one of which might be off for about 4 weeks until a new controller is built), one CCTV site off, four sites knocked off UTC and three poles demolished.

All for two collisions. *sighs*
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traffic-light-man
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by traffic-light-man »

4 weeks for a controller re-build? Then again, Siemens or PEEK?

Lancashire has been having bad trouble with missing borders, however with their maintenance budget, i doubt they'll worry too much.

Particlually around Liverpool, we have resorted to the 3M Sticky reflective tape being stuck to the lanterns directly!
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by WHBM »

How much of the £50k do you ever get back ? Yes I know you'll put in a claim, but how much is actually recovered, and how much has to come from the budget ?

And did the demolished controller need to be so close to the carriageway ?

Hopefully nobody hurt. Broken hardware is certainly preferable to that.
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by boing_uk »

AIUI, both stolen vehicles unfortunately. And even more unfortunately, yes the controllers had to be where they were, due to buried services.

Honestly speaking, it wouldve been worth it for the little muckers to have had some serious injuries.

Siemens have pulled through though. A stock 900 is being configured for one of the sites and should be installed on Friday, although TBH its working fine traffic-wise without them. Conversely, the pedestrians are really struggling now.

Ideally, with a little bit more planning, I would've liked to rip the signals out and put zebra's in to cater for the peds, then let traffic sort itself out afterwards.
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by ziltro »

boing_uk wrote:one CCTV site off
Glad to hear it. Save some of our money and don't fix it maybe?
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by traffic-light-man »

boing_uk wrote:Siemens have pulled through though. A stock 900 is being configured for one of the sites and should be installed on Friday...
Thought they would, they had done the same for Lancs last week :P
ziltro wrote:
boing_uk wrote:one CCTV site off
Glad to hear it. Save some of our money and don't fix it maybe?
...not be able to monitor traffic flow during events, and alter the signals accordingly, thus leading to an effect on local economy and disruption to people's daily lives. Seems like the way to go to me :lol:

--

TBH, I very much like the idea of the Zebra placement if the traffic flows ok without the signals there. I also liked the idea of the flashing amber turn arrows the GLC was going to trial back in the day :lol:

I think our current system needs a full revamp soon though, the system of aspect placements and the likes is far past where it needs to be IMO.
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by horsetan »

They could always ask TfL for spares, particularly after the Golders Green resignalling has been completed :wink:
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by DorsetWay »

Peek Elites for Golders Green right? Would be good if TfL went for something different like AluStars for the whole junction (like the Gillingham St example) rather than just for higher mountings and mast arms...

Slightly off topic, I think there were news somewhere that TfL are planning to bring in countdown clocks that I have a feeling these will be applied to the new Oxford Circus diagonal crossing, anyone agree?
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by horsetan »

DorsetWay wrote:Peek Elites for Golders Green right? Would be good if TfL went for something different like AluStars for the whole junction (like the Gillingham St example) rather than just for higher mountings and mast arms...
:arrow: This is the gyratory system which is being completely resignalled with new heads - likely to be Peek Elites, since these are TfL's default standard now.
Slightly off topic, I think there were news somewhere that TfL are planning to bring in countdown clocks that I have a feeling these will be applied to the new Oxford Circus diagonal crossing, anyone agree?
Not known, but would be interesting. Modelled on Tokyo's Shibuya crossing, apparently. God only knows why they think anarchic London pedestrians can be regulated in the same way as ever-obedient Japanese ones..... :roll:
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by traffic-light-man »

I think Page borders are particulally scarce, non of that in London here, or are there? :P

I think count-downs wouldn't make so much difference in London, even if they can be programmed to change according to signal timings. I was under the impression that the CDTs from TSEU based thier timer on the last cycle time, so if the next was different, it would all be wrong :?
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by wallasey »

Some Mellors (?) linked are in process of being changed over as we speak. The new heads are Siemens Helios's.

The junction is part of a gyratory, however the old heads didn't have any directional arrows in this instance.

To be honest, I prefer the older designs. The arrows on the Helios just seem to be too small for my likening.

The linked image is best viewed in magnified form as it wasn't taken for the purposes of traffic lights.
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by Bryn666 »

What is the fuss about the AluStar? It looks bloody awful!
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traffic-light-man
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by traffic-light-man »

wallasey wrote:Some Mellors (?) linked are in process of being changed over as we speak. The new heads are Siemens Helios's.

The junction is part of a gyratory, however the old heads didn't have any directional arrows in this instance.

To be honest, I prefer the older designs. The arrows on the Helios just seem to be too small for my likening.

The linked image is best viewed in magnified form as it wasn't taken for the purposes of traffic lights.
Hmm, interesting. If I'm honest, I thought the rate of replacement projects in the Merseyside area slowed down massivley, whilst Warrington still battles on.

I noticed a Mellor change out in Aintree earlier this week, however whilst I'm inclined to say the new lanterns are Elites, they do strike me as the last generation Telent MSH/3G Hi-Brid heads from the back, as they were bagged from the front.
Bryn666 wrote:What is the fuss about the AluStar? It looks bloody awful!
Everyone to thier own. Marmite situation :lol:

Take it you saw the Swarco origonal and the EL-SI french adapted version at Traffex?

I was very supprised that Motus didn't have thier AluStar on display, but I suppose you were glad of that :wink:
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by Beardy5632 »

It does make me feel sad for the Mellor lights, especially here in Gloucestershire as they seem to be changing alot of them to 3Gs or AluStars.
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Gareth
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by Gareth »

The Mellor had a good innings though and at least one company still produce it, I believe.
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by DorsetWay »

I am currently staying in Cork for the weekend,

I am pleased to report there is a large stock of Mellor signals in existence around Cork City. However in recent months/years there have been casual replacement Helios heads mixing in with Mellors although these mostly run CLS lamps which was a sight operating with the Mellors still on halogen lamps!

On the larger wider roads around the city, there are more CLS Helios signals suspended on mast arms - usually two heads for the same direction which in the UK just one head is normally seen.

There are still a lot of the same UK yellow pushbuttons around though they all have the flashing green man pictogram, as the flashing green man phase in Cork is not only restricted to pelicans as it is used instead of the blackout phase.

The yellow pushbuttons were gradually replaced by blue Prisma Teknik ones although Cork City seems to have gone back to British style buttons again that I saw modern style yellow AGD puffin pushbuttons, just with the red wait lamp and no nearside indicator, fitted on new signal poles with farsided pedestrian signals!
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traffic-light-man
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by traffic-light-man »

Warrington, over the last two or three weeks, have chucked out a bunch of old GEC RAGs and replaced them with shiny new 3Gs and a Sentinel Controller (at lease, I think it is...). Also interesting to note is the new farside signals.

What's even more interesting is that councils seem to be straying from using thier prefered signal of choice. For example, Halton is using a mix of Helios LED, Elite LED and GE retrofits, and Warrington is using Helios LED and 3Gs as well.

I suspect alot of this is actually just retrofitting Helios sites with the new LED retrofit rather than replacing halogen heads with new.
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by sotonsteve »

There is a big blitz of Siemens LED signal replacements for halogen signal heads down my way. Both Southampton and Hampshire are having quite a blitz, as is the Highways Agency. Over a very short period of time the Mellor head has really become less common.
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Re: End of the road for Mellor signals?

Post by traffic-light-man »

Prettey much the same here in Halton. I can now, save for the Runcorn Busway, count the amount of Mellor sites on two hands, sadly.

The majority of the busway is still using GEC Elliott or GEC Mellor lanterns, however the council seem to be, in a systematic style, replacing the main road crossings with Helios*.

*Interestingly enough, most of these being Halogen, whilst other Helios sites are being retro-fitted with CLS optics in the origonal housings! :?
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