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PostPosted: Sat Feb 26, 2011 11:58 pm 
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That must have been a massive wrench to force-turn the spigot on that gamma 4 pictured!


I think I only know of one Gamma 4 installation still left, and that's on a service station on the northbound A1 north of Doncaster. There used to be one outside the Dolphin Centre in Darlington, along with two GEC Fishbowls, but the lanterns were replaced with boring Urbis ZX3's

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PostPosted: Sun Feb 27, 2011 1:02 am 
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Talking of classic post-tops, it's not a supermarket, a store or a restaurant (it's a sports centre) and despite being council-owned this venerable Phosco P222 remains in place! It runs SON. Note the blue canopy which the vast majority of Lancashire examples had. This one of only two P222s I know of which still exist in the Fylde area.


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PostPosted: Sat Sep 17, 2011 4:11 pm 
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The mercury lighting at my local superstore is getting very worn out now. Originally, when the store was built in 1991, most of the 10m mid-hinged CU octagonal steel columns were fitted with Phosco P426 (MRL6) lanterns running 250W mercury lamps, although a handful in one service yard were geared for SON lamps. In one of the road accesses there are three 5m mid-hinged CU octagonal steel columns fitted with Philips HGS203 lanterns running 80W mercury lamps. A later expansion to car parking used the same type of 10m columns as before, but with flat glass ZX3s running 250W quartz metal halide lamps.

Mercury lamps have not been kind to the lanterns. Of the Phosco P426s that survive most have cloudy bowls, and some have gone so brittle that holes have appeared in the bowls. A couple got replaced after about only 10 years service with Phosco P678s running SON-T lamps. However, all of these plus a few more P426s got replaced with Nordex Astra 2 lanterns running 250W mercury lamps a few years ago. However, the bowls on these lanterns have aged very rapidly, all of them are toffee bowled, and some have developed holes. They evidently aren't as high quality as the GEC-designed P426s they replaced. As for the HGS203s, you can imagine what the bowls are like, considering how bad SGS203 bowls get. There are also one or two Thorn Civics running 250W mercury lamps, and the main car park is lit by mercury high masts.

I wonder how much longer it will be before lanterns are replaced? The mercury lamp ban is coming, and most of the non-high mast lanterns are past their best.


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PostPosted: Sat Sep 17, 2011 11:42 pm 
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Much as I like mercury lighting, I'm surprised at the supermarket using it so abundantly in this day and age, as it's not exactly the most efficient light source, especially at these high wattages! Even in 1991 it would have seemed rather dated as supermarkets in my area have used SON lighting in their car parks since the 80s.

I think a major problem with lanterns like the MRL6 and SGS203 is that, although they can take mercury lamps, they were designed with SON in mind and the bowls cannot handle the UV rays from the MBF lamps in the way that the old glass-bowled mercury lanterns could.


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PostPosted: Sun Sep 18, 2011 12:09 am 
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Very probably. York's GEC Z8600's originally had MBF lamps fitted to replace Z8430's... and although some of the worst examples have been replaced with QSS's now, you should have seen the state of those bowls - brown and with a massive hole in the bottom.


Those HGS 203's and mercury Thorn Civics might be worth trying to get hold of though.

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PostPosted: Sun Sep 18, 2011 7:01 am 
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It was unusual that they chose mercury over SON, but it seems that they were keen on using white light for lighting what you could consider a flagship superstore development. Back in 1991 metal halide lamp technology was a lot more expensive and quite inferior due to lamp life and colour shifting, so mercury was still the choice if you wanted white light.

It would not surprise me if the next batch of lanterns are metal halide Nordex Astras. As for the high masts, surely they would keep them and just change the lanterns.


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PostPosted: Sat Sep 24, 2011 12:43 pm 
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Nice toffee bowl. Who would have thought the lantern was installed within the past 5 years?

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PostPosted: Sat Sep 24, 2011 11:50 pm 
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The bowl is worse than the fibreglass canopy, that's saying something!

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PostPosted: Mon Sep 26, 2011 12:20 am 
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I bet the light output is quite poor...  ;)

The Nordex Astra has the air of a rather cheap and nasty product! I could be wrong of course...


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PostPosted: Mon Sep 26, 2011 12:32 am 
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It reminds me of the melted bowled MRL6s going up Huddersfield Road (the A641).

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