Very strange indeed, and rather marvelous. It`s hard to work out just where most of the light comes out though. At those angles, if they light from the sides, much of the light will go up in the air or back behind the column rather than along the road, and it`s not clear what`s sticking out at the bottom. Wonder if there were ever any photos of them at night?
I have all three of The Secret Life of the Motorway saved away here, must find some time to watch them, loads of interesting stuff in there by the look of it. Someone put up a photo of the Philips motorway "bricks" on Sabre recently. Don`t think there are any left out in the wild any more so interesting to see them.
Drifting slightly, but I *vaguely* recall seeing the occasional MS1 signal displaying the "0" symbol instead of today`s "End" (or "Eno" as I saw on one with a few too many lamps out) when I was extremely small. Always was fascinated by those things and enjoyed seeing them working. Perhaps not so these days when they sit there flashing "40" but the traffic`s crawling along at a snail`s pace. Would still like to get hold of one some day, but in the mean-time, plan to complete a working scale model using warm white 10mm LEDs to look like the old style incandescent lamps.
But I digress. Sabre photo of the Midlands Philips lanterns
on this page, just a shame the one right at the front of the picture got replaced by an MA60.