Re: Abandoned Alpha 5s on the A556. I have been aware of these for many years now. From a recent visit (Aug 2014) I can confirm they are still in situ, however both lanterns are now in a very poor condition. Sadly, it looks like they have been targeted by vandals, as both have now lost their lamps. Although it has been lit by SON for several years, you are correct that the whole A556 / Chester Road in this area was once lit by SLi, at least certainly as far as Lostock Gralam, where GEC Z9564s on twin arm steel columns took over. With the ending of SLi lamp production, all the Alpha 5s were then replaced en mass by Philips MA50s many years ago but the concrete columns were retained. As well as these two, two more CU columns which have retained their MA50s are still to be found in the VOSA checkpoint area, long after the rest had gone. As a sidepoint, Cheshire CC had plenty of SLi schemes into the mid 80s, especially in Wilmslow, Handforth and Alderley Edge, where GEC Clearmain Z9517s  on CU columns where to be found in quantity. On the rural A5102 from Woodford to Wilmslow, a scheme from the 70s utilised gearless Alpha 6s on Petijean columns. Later on, an installation on the nearby B5358, used Alpha 5s on Thorn QC10 columns. As this was probably one of the first installations of group A aluminium columns, I recall it was heavily featured in Thorn Lighting publicity material at the time. I don't think these brand new Alpha 5s had a very long life, as they were soon replaced with GEC Z9554Ms. All interesting stuff though, nevertheless.