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 Post subject: Re: Motorway Lighting
PostPosted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 9:46 pm 
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A couple of years ago I recorded the section of M1 inside the M25, which included the catenary lighting around Junction 6. At the time, a significant portion of it, about a third of the stretch which is south of Junction 6, was completely out, however the remaining portion worked and was well maintained.

On Tuesday I wasted my time commuting to Watford by car, intending to perform duties that I aborted from due to circumstances. But at least I was able to take the opportunity to check out the lighting again. Unfortunately there are still significant outtages on the southern third of the catenary stretch. It looks like the maintenance crews managed to get some lanterns working, but I suspect much of the electrics and gear are past their time and not serviceable to an ideal extent.

Also for the record, the MA60s south of the catenary lighting are still in good order, save for a number of units at the north end (near the faulty catenary stock).


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 Post subject: Re: Motorway Lighting
PostPosted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 10:44 pm 
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Thanks for the update. It's frustrating to hear that that's the case as it undermines the argument for keeping the catenary lighting. Still, you're probably right in saying that the electrics, gear etc. are no doubt becoming increasingly expensive to repair.


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 Post subject: Re: Motorway Lighting
PostPosted: Thu Dec 03, 2015 5:36 pm 
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I suspect the outages are more likely due to cable faults and lack of relamping than the lanterns being defective. Highways England doesn't have the greatest track record when it comes to outages. Cable faults are a common problem, and as for relamping, they tend to do bulk relamping, but when relamping does get done it requires lane closures in both directions. I've also found they are treating SOX installations less well than SON, and sometimes this is because there are upcoming replacements so they are less willing to invest. Meanwhile, given how control gear was made in the old days, I would be surprised if there were significant 180W leak transformer failures, as generally the ballasts survive better than the lanterns on older lanterns (or the other way round on modern lanterns!).


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 Post subject: Re: Motorway Lighting
PostPosted: Thu Dec 03, 2015 6:45 pm 
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It very much depends on the contractor as HE is only an administrator. In the case of the aforementioned section it is Connect Plus M25, and they have a track record of only replacing the lighting in the event of a widening project (remember how long the SOX from J21 and J30 lasted?).

However, just next door are EM Highway Services, who maintain sections of the M4, A34, A3, M3 and A303. They have been much more progressive when it comes to lighting, and they're rolling out LED just about everywhere.

In fact, if you look at M4 Junction 5 (where the two contractors intersect), there's a strange anomaly in that some old Alpha 8s have survived on the flyover, between Iridiums on one side and SGS204s on the other.


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 Post subject: Re: Motorway Lighting
PostPosted: Fri Dec 04, 2015 5:40 pm 
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That is correct, but cable faults are common between all areas of Highways England's network, as are traffic management constraints. You don't tend to have so many issues with cable faults on local authority roads because they are directly wired to the local power network's cabling rather than via a private cable to a feeder pillar. And as for traffic management, you can get away with parking a bucket van at the side of the road and changing a lamp pretty easily, without the hassle of traffic management.

Some areas of Highways England are better than others, but the nature of the infrastructure and procedures involved are the same. M25 DBFO will do the minimum they can get away with to try and maximise profits, much like a street lighting PFI does when the capital funding runs out.


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 Post subject: Re: Motorway Lighting
PostPosted: Sat Dec 05, 2015 2:29 am 
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Paianni wrote:
It very much depends on the contractor as HE is only an administrator. In the case of the aforementioned section it is Connect Plus M25, and they have a track record of only replacing the lighting in the event of a widening project (remember how long the SOX from J21 and J30 lasted?).

However, just next door are EM Highway Services, who maintain sections of the M4, A34, A3, M3 and A303. They have been much more progressive when it comes to lighting, and they're rolling out LED just about everywhere.

In fact, if you look at M4 Junction 5 (where the two contractors intersect), there's a strange anomaly in that some old Alpha 8s have survived on the flyover, between Iridiums on one side and SGS204s on the other.


Well if this is the case then the particular contractors in charge of the M602 going into Manchester aren't great for re-lamping, as I saw almost every MA60 dead at night, with only around 1 in 15 working along quite a long stretch of road before it changed to working stretches of MRL6s.


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 Post subject: Re: Motorway Lighting
PostPosted: Sat Dec 05, 2015 1:48 pm 
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The M602 is managed by Balfour Beatty, and the replacement of the MA60s with LEDs is probably iminent if they are letting them run dry. They are doing the same thing on the M60.


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 Post subject: Re: Motorway Lighting
PostPosted: Sat Dec 05, 2015 6:00 pm 
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Paianni wrote:
...the replacement of the MA60s with LEDs is probably iminent if they are letting them run dry. They are doing the same thing on the M60.


The M67 towards Hyde is in the same sorry situation, with a lot more of the central res' out. Interestingly a couple of the slips had been relit to LED earlier this year, however the work seems to be quite limited to five or six columns at the most. The remaining length down to the motorway is still SOX and is either still working or no longer in use.

In view that the western portion of the M67 towards Hattersley has never been lit, it makes you wonder whether the stretch currently with the MAs will be relit or switched out for good?

On some separate news, the M60 approaching Cheadle had recently lost its tall, twin lamp SON'Ts (Urbis lanterns?) in favour of post top Lumas on shorter columns. The daytime aesthetics are much improved and they are quite satisfactory at night. The sliproad from here to "Roscoe's roundabout" was previously lit by Trafficmasters, however these bar one still on the overbridge were removed entirely a little while ago. In the last week or so however, new columns have gone up and are currently awaiting their Lumas.

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 Post subject: Re: Motorway Lighting
PostPosted: Mon Feb 08, 2016 12:09 am 
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All the last remaining SOX lighting on the M25 (to my knowledge), between Junction 30 and 31, was extinguished last week. This may be in connection with the ongoing works to relieve the bottleneck between the M25 and the A13.

The works involve widening the A13 to remove the existing lane drops where it intersects the M25 at Junction 30 and improving the slip roads on and off the motorway. The central reservation-mounted Philips MA60s between Junction 30 and 31 were once part of a once mightily long 33 mile stretch of unbroken SOX lighting on the M25 from Junction 23 to Junction 31.

As Junction 30 and 31 are only about half a mile apart, the alterations to the junction's slip roads will likely result in their permanent removal.

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Above image from this newspaper report from the Southend Echo


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 Post subject: Re: Motorway Lighting
PostPosted: Sun Mar 06, 2016 12:36 am 
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Although the ZX4s have now all gone from Hampshire's motorways, there are still ZX4s on the M40, from the widening in 1998. In fact, they were being installed as late as 2010, as the M25 saw a few new units on top of Junction 17.


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