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PostPosted: Wed Mar 25, 2015 11:19 pm 
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Alex wrote:
HOW STUFF'S MADE (SERIES 4): How do street lights burn for 30 years without a new light bulb


One could answer that with a somewhat flippant, but entirely factual answer: Stick a Westinghouse Lifeguard mercury lamp in it!  :D


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PostPosted: Sun Apr 05, 2015 3:23 pm 
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Here is an archive news clip from 1987 that outlines the relighting scheme of Tower Hamlets, featuring a particular road where plain concrete columns will be replaced by SON-E heritage lighting. Other shots include SGS203 replacements.


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PostPosted: Sun Apr 05, 2015 5:51 pm 
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I wonder how much of that "new" lighting still exists now? Just like with contractors now, the quality of work left a bit to be desired - wonky lamp inside the refractor ring!


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PostPosted: Sun Apr 05, 2015 6:17 pm 
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Well spotted. Not to mention their spurious claim of "more efficient light" :!:


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PostPosted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 10:31 am 
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Alex wrote:
Here is an archive news clip from 1987 that outlines the relighting scheme of Tower Hamlets, featuring a particular road where plain concrete columns will be replaced by SON-E heritage lighting. Other shots include SGS203 replacements.


Phosco152 wrote:
I wonder how much of that "new" lighting still exists now? Just like with contractors now, the quality of work left a bit to be desired - wonky lamp inside the refractor ring!


All (or at least most) of the heritage lighting on the side streets still remains, but a significant number of the SGS203s have been killed off in recent years by a variety of lanterns, such as ZX3s, Evolos, Holophane Estilos and, most recently, LED lanterns (mostly Urbis Teceos). Side road SGS203s have mostly been replaced with ZXU1s. The A roads in the borough which still have SGS203s will definitely lose them soon as they fall under TfL's LED retrofitting scheme and I've seen a few Phosco P850s crop up on a handful of columns. It's been a while since I've been through Tower Hamlets though, so all this may have changed now.


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PostPosted: Sat Dec 26, 2015 10:01 am 
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The Nordic countries still use a lot of catenary lighting, noticeably Denmark and Copenhagen for instance. However this example of twin row catenary lighting from somewhere in Stockholm spotted on BBC4's Arne Dahl crime thrller series is more unusual.

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PostPosted: Sat Dec 26, 2015 7:49 pm 
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Interesting optics for those catenary lanterns.

---

The EastEnders Christmas special last night on BBC One featured a closeup of a P107 running a SON-E! Here are some screenshots:
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 25, 2016 6:39 pm 
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Vintage scene from last night's James May's Cars of the People.

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PostPosted: Mon Jan 25, 2016 10:52 pm 
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Interesting. What are those lanterns to the left?


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 26, 2016 1:10 am 
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Alex wrote:
Interesting. What are those lanterns to the left?


If you google "M4 in 1970s", the first image which is listed appears to be a frame from this footage as used in the James May programme. The whole clip is on Youtube and is listed as: "1970s POV from Car Driving Away from West London towards M4 motorway." (sorry - I don't know how you set a direct link to this clip). It has been uploaded by "thekinolibrary".

The start of the film shows central res' catenary lighting, followed by the concrete columns with galv steel twin outreach brackets as seen on your pic. At first glance, these lanterns  look like Alpha 5s, however looking at the portion on the video, they look more like GEC Clearmain Z9504s.

The slip road lanterns also seem to be mounted on concrete columns, but do not have steel outreaches. At first glance, I would suspect the lanterns are 140W sodiums, however the scale doesn't seem quite right in relation to the other columns. Although it would be common to have both mercury and sodium together back then, my other suggestion is that these lanterns might be GEC Z8524s. Interestingly, if you follow the video near to the end, an adjoining sliproad seems to be lit by flat glass Z8520s on steel columns with long outreaches.  

The general problem we have on footage like this, is that there is a degree of moving image distortion, which tends to make the lanterns on the sliproad more tricky to identify. This distortion may be due to the film quality and to some extent by the curvature of the car's windscreen.

That said, this film is certainly worthwhile seeing.

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