2014 has certainly been a killer year in Redbridge for many lantern types and the "murderer" in most cases has been the Urbis Furyo, although the similar-looking and rare Urbis Falco has also sunk its teeth into older lanterns. MRL6s are now extinct, the last examples in Ilford Town Centre having been replaced with Furyos in June. The only ones left on Redbridge soil are some TfL-owned examples on the A12 in Newbury Park, although these will soon be retrofitted with Phosco P850 LED lanterns in TfL's mass LED retrofitting scheme. Philips MA30 numbers are now down to just three on a roundabout, the adjacent flyover which featured them having been Furyoed in June. GR100s are now almost extinct, the only road lit by them following the mid-1990s mass replacement of SOX having been Furyoed just a few weeks ago, but one has somehow been missed. Z9554s are now also down to just three. There is one which is right on the edge of the boundary with Waltham Forest and so has probably been missed in a replacement scheme with Urbis Falcos in 2012 due to ownership issues and there are a few on Chigwell Road which are disused and have not been removed having been replaced with Furyos, the latter now having been in nightly service for about 9 months. Alpha 4s are also down to three, all of them being on Woodford Green High Road. The only SOX lantern in Redbridge which still has a notable population is the GR150, although only on one road (Woodford Green High Road) and some of those have been casually replaced with Falcos, Sapphires, Iridiums and in earlier years MA50s and Alpha 4s. I feel they are on borrowed time though due to surrounding roads being Furyoed and Falcoed.
ZXs and SGS203s are now on the decline all the time on main roads as the Furyo has been taking centre stage. There are now only a handful of roads still lit with them. In most cases the columns have been retained but have had their brackets chopped off and the Furyos and their fancy brackets slapped on top, although where the columns have been in poorer condition they have been installed on new columns. Several roads with ZX2s and a smaller amount of roads with ZX3s were Furyoed in 2014. This has been a gradual process since 2008 but it does seem to have sped up over this past year. ZX1s and SGS203s on side streets are still plentiful but are declining. They have been under attack since 2005/6 when Redbridge started trialling metal halide, using mostly Sapphires, but a handful of roads in the Goodmayes area saw their ZX1s retrofitted with LED lanterns about a month or so ago. LED lanterns are now also being used as casual replacements for damaged ZX1s and SGS203s on side streets, so it could well be a sign of things to come. Even the very small number of cul-de-sacs which still have SOX (Eleco GR550s, with some XGS103s and Phosco P228s) have started to see LED lanterns being used as casual replacements and, in one case, en-masse, and a few were already overhauled with Furyos and ZX1s in 2012. P228 numbers are now down to just one, as the only cul-de-sac with them installed saw its two other P228s casually replaced with an XGS103 and a ZX1, but probably at different times as Redbridge was still installing SOX casual replacements in 2013.
So, going into 2015, it appears that nothing is safe. LED lanterns (mostly Urbis Axias, but there is also an extremely ugly LED lantern that looks like two bits of metal smacked together which I can't identify which have been used on some roads) are starting to make an appearance on side streets, but have not yet taken to the main roads. There are only currently about 5 roads which are entirely LED-lit, one with Urbis Pianos installed in 2011 and four others with (I think) Urbis Axias. The number one lantern of choice at the moment on main roads is the Urbis Furyo and all examples installed thus far have been metal halide. But who knows? Redbridge may well turn to LED at some point in the next few years and we could see all Furyos installed over the last 6 years or so being overhauled with LED lanterns. It would be an awful waste if this does happen though, as I imagine the Furyos and Falcos and their brackets have not come cheap, especially as aluminium columns have been used in some cases.
Sorry I've ended up writing an essay about Redbridge's streetlighting, but it has used so many lantern types over the years and over the last few years its streetlighting regime has been so complicated that an essay is the only way I can summarise it!
|