Ten days ago, Sotonsteve and I took another trip over to the Netherlands to meet some Dutch lighting enthusiasts and to see more of the varied lighting of the Netherlands. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t brilliant with rain and cloud, and some of the relics we hoped to see had succumbed to replacements, but even so the trip didn’t disappoint.
Firstly,
lighting as art in Den Bosch, the whole assembly
changes colour.
Another contemporary installation. A typical scene,
SOX lighting is still very common.
In Roermond, a few
Schreder HSB lanterns still survive running
twin mercury lamps. Many however have been replaced with
contemporary installations. The car park of the hotel we stayed at on the first night had
SGS201s running 18W SOX. Apledoorn likes to make a
statementwith its lighting, and more
Philips Metronomis lanterns on catenary wires in the centre of town.
Deventer also had some
contemporary installations, but also some more
traditional Dutch SOX installations and
close up. These lanterns are the forerunners of the Philips MA50/60/90 series.
SOX motorway lighting is on the decline but we still spotted some
MA60s and even
MA50s used at greater heights and spacings than in the UK.
A must see was the town of Emmen where practically all of the main roads are lit with
twin lamp 4ft fluorescent fittings. Close up and
some more. Twin bracket examples, close up and
again.White light of a different type was in use in MacDonald’s –
Philips Speedstars.Lochem seems to have lost most of its relics to new installations. We did find some
Schreder PQ lanterns and
close up and also a slightly different version on a
twin bracket column and
close up.Rosmalen still had some
“snowshoe” lanterns, the reason for the nickname becomes more apparent in the daylight however. 55W SOX is widely used at 8m in the Netherlands on secondary roads, but the real surprise was the
use of 35W at 8m and
close up.Fluorescent lighting can still be found on side streets, often of the PL variety, but here is some use
“traditional” lamps and
close up.Group switching is the norm, so you get to see
sights like this and also this –
a ribbon of SOX captured seconds before they switched off at dawn.On our final day with a bit of time to kill before Le Shuttle, we took a detour off the motorway and through Dunkirk. It was probably the biggest surprise/shock of the trip. Firstly SOX in France in the form of
Schreder GSO lanterns – widely used over the border in Belgium and also the Netherlands but not expected in France. The wonderful curved concrete columns were in excellent condition.
Then some
twin bracket versions with Holophane/Thorn LT2 lanterns, no doubt originally mercury but now SON. Around the next bend we were greeted with
this sight and
vintage lanterns, which looked to be fluorescent! This proved that the LT2s were later replacements.
Another view,
and again, with the help of our Dutch friends they confirmed the lanterns were indeed
fluorescent and in very good condition.
And top all of that off, a
MA50 as
well!