An unusual one...

Looking beneath the elevated section of the M4 in west London, a whole load of the lanterns mounted to the underside of the elevated road have recently been lantern swapped. The previous lanterns were Thorn Alpha 8s. Unusually, the new lanterns are not LED, and they have decided to install Thorn Oracle SON lanterns. Firstly, I didn't realise they still made those, but secondly, mass replacement with SON in 2022?

I'm not sure if the lighting belongs to TfL (whose road it lights) or National Highways (whose structure it is mounted to), but both parties have been rolling out LED.

On the A272 at Steep in Hampshire a a couple of SOX installations still survive although I doubt they actually still work. Hampshire PFI installations are closer to the roundabaout. This section of road was changed when the A3 Petersfield bypass was built in 1992 and I suspect it's a discrepency in the records about what is National Highways owned vs county owned, hence each thinks the other owns the assets.

Yes, they are National Highways. Most, if not all of them haven't been working for years, as they were neglected and left to burn to extinction in true National Highways style. They will get picked up on LED replacements at some point. You'd assume sooner rather than later if they aren't working, but that would be common sense.

So, that posting was in July 2017. Five years have passed, and the MA90s at Rownhams Services have been retrofitted a second time. This time, new trays containing LED modules have been fitted inside the canopies. Colour temperature and output appear broadly similar, but the distribution is different and more cut-off as the light source is a flat one up in the canopy rather than a lamp shaped one extending down partially into the bowl. I'm not sure what the reasons were for replacement. I know some weren't working, though it's hard to know with the services if outages are due to alternative issues like cable faults, and Rownhams has had extensive cable faults in the past. Nevertheless, the first generation LED replacements lasted 5 years.

I was trawling through Royal Borough of Greenwich's website for work the other week and came across the street lighting page, which states that the Council has taken out a loan to upgrade its streetlighting to LED. So it looks like what I believe to be one of the last London boroughs to be predominantly non-LED won't be for much longer!

https://www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk/info/ ... ht_upgrade

An unusual one that I spotted the other night...

On a footway parallel to Alan Drayton Way in Fair Oak, Hampshire, four bollard lights have been installed. There was not any footway lighting at this location previously, though it certainly would justify it, given how far the footway is set back from the road (due to the road being future proofed for a dual carriageway that never happened). Bollard lighting is an odd choice, and I suspect it was proposed by the parish rather than the county. Theoretically more prone to vandalism, and typically need more units to provide light, but it does provide light that is not impacted by the tree canopies above. Stranger though is that there are only the four bollards. I feel like they should stretch at least as far as the subway to the east and Torwood Gardens to the west, because as it stands they just light one small bit of a continuous footway, so pedestrians and cyclists still need to use an unlit footway to either side (as light spill from the main road is not sufficient).

Milton Keynes had a LED replacement scheme on their grid roads in 2 stages:
The first stage in 2014/2015 affected the H8 Standing Way (A421), V4 Watling Street, V7 Saxon Street and V8 Marlborough Street. The lantern chosen was the TRT Aspect.
The second stage in 2016/2017 affected all the other grid roads and used the Holophane V-Max.
Now since 2020, some of the Aspects used in the first stage have been casually replaced by V-Maxes which seems a bit wasteful.

_________________
No LED is better than other light sources (apart from probably lanterns such as Philips LumiStreets)!

In Portsmouth, Sywell Crescent up in the Anchorage Park area has very recently had a column replacement scheme, with the spec of columns and lanterns now looking much like most other roads in the city. This road was missed out by the PFI bulk replacements and retained its 1980s 8m columns with small shoe Philips MA90s. A couple of years back these all got lantern swapped for the now usual Portsmouth spec Philips LumiStreet. I'm mentioning this, because it's interesting to know that in Portsmouth there are column replacement schemes happening, 19 years into the 25 year PFI contract. I believe it is normal for PFI contracts to have a clause that says assets must have at least 5 years residual life come the end of contract, so it's likely they are picking away at columns that would not pass this test.

UPDATE: looking at planned roadworks, it appears over the next two weeks column replacements in Anchorage Park will target Hartwell Road, Plumpton Gardens, Barton Grove, Marston Lane, Yardley Close, Brampton Lane, Holdcot Lane, Wilby Lane and Blakesley Lane. I'd say they are probably doing column replacements of at least all the 1980s roads on that estate.

Since my last trip to Brighton, the LED rollout has made much more of a mark, and whilst Phosco P852 was a popular choice a couple of years ago for residential streets, they transitioned towards the E950. On side entry installations, it actually looks quite decent and unobtrusive. It only looks ridiculous when paired with the post-top adapter.

There are still a few non-LED installations about. Of great prominence is Western Road outside Churchill Square shopping centre, which still has a mix of lanterns on 1960s wall brackets including a couple of Philips SGS204s and even a geared Thorn Alpha 3. St Georges Mews has a nice line of wall mounted AC Ford AC888 lanterns. And on Richmond Parade there was still a surviving Philips MA50. So, despite mass LED, not all is quite dead, and as a place to visit it is still quite interesting for lighting, even if it is just for the wide variety of different column styles and LED fixtures.

These heritage lanterns and brackets were removed from service sometime between March 2020 and July 2021, in all likelihood as part of plans to sweep up the difficult lanterns left behind in Kent County Council’s replacement by LEDs programme.


The new brackets are a simple semicircle and the new LED lanterns are the D. W. Windsor “Strand A” type. This photograph was taken in July 2021.



The same view today. This photograph was taken in July 2021.



The same view today. Photograph taken in July 2021.


It is a shame that the brackets could not be retained. They appeared to be a very faithful reproduction of the original Victorian lamp standards. Image source.

The High Street’s reproduction columns, brackets and carbon arc-style lanterns weren’t original to the street. They seemed to have first appeared sometime in the 1980s.


This photograph looking north from the Big Bridge was taken in April 2019, but this photograph from approximately the same location taken in 1982 by a photographer for Sainsbury’s shows the street previously had 8m high columns with Thorn Alpha Threes.


The same view photographed in July 2021.



The MetroVick SO50 lives on, albeit out of light. The adjacent SGS203 has been replaced. This photograph was taken in July 2021.



The same view today. This photograph was taken in July 2021. The bridge has had its GEC Z8455 lanterns replaced with D. W. Windsor “Windsor” LED lanterns.


The Big Bridge carries the High Street over the River Medway. This photograph and the two below show the bridge’s five Phosco 109s and were taken in April 2019.





The bridge was also re-lit with D. W. Windsor “Windsor” LED lanterns but, puzzlingly, I have never seen them in light.


This photograph of the Big Bridge was taken in July 2021.


The lantern was an AEI/BTH Amber lantern running 35W SOX on a REVO column. This was a popular combination in Tonbridge up until Kent County Council's LED roll-out. The three photographs below were taken in March 2020.







Instead of swopping out the lantern to one running LED, the whole column was replaced.


This photograph was taken in July 2021.


This fabulous example of a Group A flying saucer has now flown off, and been replaced with a post-top mounted LED floodlight. The nearby Thorn Gamma Five "Group B" flying saucer lighting a pedestrian route between the River Medway and the Sainsburys car park is still in place, but it has not been lit for a long time.

As for the other old lanterns in my original post, the GEC Z8260 on railway land east of Tonbridge railway station is still in place, and still in need of replacement tubes. The other GEC Z8260 on railway land to the west of Tonbridge railway station has been replaced with an LED lantern.


These lanterns are still in place, but still not working.

Meanwhile in a refreshing change, a number of the Council-run car parks in Tonbridge were re-lit a few years ago with 3000K CDO-TT lamps. But as the lamps have expired, they have been spot-replaced with SON lamps.


The Council-run Waitrose and Iceland car park in Sovereign Way, as photographed in April 2019, with just two SON lamps in the circa. 29 lanterns in this photograph.


By December 2021, about 40% of the street lights had reverted from a white light source back to SON.


By May 2023, about 80% of the car park was back to SON.

The whole car park is on schedule to be 100% SON by sometime next year!