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PostPosted: Sun Apr 01, 2012 12:38 am 
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Put this simply, it strikes home the loss of regional identity in all manner of things. You get on a bus, and a bus in Leeds looks the same as one in Bath, Bristol, Bradford, Oldham, or Glasgow (and many more places besides)... you go to Leeds and look at the street lighting... "Oh, Iridiums post top on unpainted/grey columns. That's original... and nothing like the post top generic egg-shaped lanterns post top mounted on unpainted/grey columns in dozens of other places around the country" (sarcastically of course). The furthest you get for Regional Identity now in street lighting is a coat of paint and sometimes if you're lucky the choice of lanterns. Nottingham chooses Sherwood Green for their column and lantern colours, but still uses Sapphires and Iridiums as their lanterns... Trafford MBC uses dark blue and gold for columns, but with Urbis ZX's on top...

You do get the odd spot of regional identity - such as Newcastle and Leeds have Urbis System 2000 installations in the main shopping streets. The metal panels of the brackets can be laser cut to a specific template, and Leeds has one pattern cut out (I think it includes the Yorkshire Rose but can't really remember) whilst Newcastle's has a castle keep cut out in it. The Leeds Loop Road is lit by Se'Lux SX400 lanterns simply to mark out the direction the road takes - when you're under those lights you know you're on or about to go on the Loop. The former Humberside region still has hundreds of aluminium columns and post top XGS201's/MI70's fitted. And then there's the curvy columns of Sheffield.

But when you compare those to what you used to get, it really is small fry by comparison.
Birmingham had Revo Precincts specially made (as well as Revo Festivals), Liverpool got the Phosco Highfield lanterns and columns specially designed, York had Revo Monarch columns (whilst not specially made, I haven't found pictures of other places with Monarchs installed), Cambridge got the Richardson Candles, London the Small Grey Wornums... But sadly Civic Pride has gone out the window in favour of getting cheap off-the-shelf mass-produced goods.

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PostPosted: Sun Apr 01, 2012 8:58 am 
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I think the closest we'd get to modern regional lighting liveries, is a different lantern canopy colour and column but it will still be an off the shelf product.

Some new columns in Calderdale are in battleship grey with a grey Arc nailed to the top but in town centres columns are painted black (there are a few red columns near to Halifax bus station but one sadly has a grey Arc nailed on top). Popping over to Kirklees, the same almost but in rural villages e.g. Hartshead you will see the standard unpainted (battleship grey) column but with either a Residium, Libra or an Arc. A few columns in the Holme Valley mostly Holmfirth are painted black but look very similar to the set up in Halifax. In Horsham the streets are lit with Albanies painted in 'rural green' and gold livery but the same set up albeit in black are found in Holmfirth.

So civic pride is all but lost due to the generic layout of pretty much everything, however what could restore it would be using a painted specially designed lantern and mixing that with the standard column e.g. blue canopied lantern, installed on to a buttermilk painted column and whist we're at it, the column base can be painted in a leaf green colour. Basically three tone and if that was ever done in these times, it should be limited to one parish only.

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PostPosted: Sun Apr 01, 2012 8:32 pm 
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Totally spot on.

The new streetlighting of Leeds & Portsmouth now appear identical - post-top white Iridiums on unpainted columns.

Compare this with 20 years ago when the streetlighting of Leeds and Portsmouth appeared miles apart as concrete columns fitted with GEC Z9554s/Eleco GR150s were favoured in Leeds while Portsmouth opted for various types of steel columns.

There are post-top Arcs on unpainted columns seen in Warrington for example so this same set-up can be seen down south in Harlow, Essex on the recently widened main road entering town from the M11.

The latest lighting up in Aberdeen shares in common with Medway down south - post-top Arcs on aluminium conical columns.

Also Enfield and Camden in London both use black Arcs on black columns. At least it is a slightly different story in Barnet as they use their own colour scheme despite Arcs being favoured there too.

Thank god for the city of Leicester for daring to be different with their 1960s/70s steel columns fitted with curved brackets and MRL6s still soldiering on main roads today with new/casual replacement lanterns being MRL6s too as of few years ago.

The colour of Leicester's columns differ to neighbouring Leicestershire's as these are painted in two-tone brown and columns in Leicestershire tend to be in a light apple green or unpainted. This is a good indication to inform you where you are but some councils shamelessly don't bother painting their columns any more.

But I have no idea what is being installed in Leicester today, this old fashioned approach may not last because the last time I looked, post-top Evolos running Cosmo/MH were being fitted on side roads.

Depressing times for the streetlighting enthusiast indeed, one day we may give up on this hobby once the lighting becomes generic anywhere you go in this country.


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PostPosted: Sun Apr 01, 2012 9:25 pm 
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It's going to be the same story up here before long. Newcastle is just black arcs on black columns apart from a few select locations. Gateshead is going for the whole Sapphire approach and Durham is using a compilation of Oracles and ZX2s. That leaves only Northumberland to have any variation in lanterns but of they take up a RF switching scheme that will be the end of that. Sunderland is just SON Iridiums everywhere on black post top columns. South Tyneside is light green columns with Iridiums although some decorative installations have been used on the promenade at South Shields.


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PostPosted: Mon Apr 02, 2012 12:05 am 
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It is a great shame to see street lighting in the UK being harmonised at such a rate, but I should mention that one town is doing its best to buck the national trend while it still has the chance. How long Colchester can hold out for, I do not know, as the unwelcome Iridium is poking its way into the street scene like the nasty arrows in the opening titles of Dad's Army.

Essex's scheduled P.F.I. was cancelled, which means it's business as usual...for the time being at least.

That means...

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Plenty of brand new SRS201s* (junction 25 of the A12, installation of new lighting currently ongoing).

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And plenty of brand new SGS203s! (North Hill in Colchester, new lighting installed in February 2012).

*Admittedly these new SRS201s were installed by the Highways Agency, but Essex County Council are still installing SOX casual replacements in SOX-only locations, although some SON has been trickling into previously SOX-only areas for a while now. I can't think of another county or region where the Highways Agency are still happily installing brand new SOX lanterns, with the exception of Hertfordshire of course.

Although the new stub brackets on North Hill could arguably be described as a bland 'modern' trend, short brackets were originally installed in the 1960s when North Hill was lit with fluorescents on Stewart and Lloyds columns. The columns were retained when the road was relit with Alpha Threes, and it's these columns with their short brackets that have just been replaced. The new columns have like-for-like short brackets.


Last edited by David on Mon Oct 09, 2017 7:26 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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PostPosted: Thu Apr 05, 2012 10:47 am 
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Sheffield was once quite recognisable with it's GEC Z9480s on Liverpool-style brackets. There's still a fair few left, although these days you're more likely to see retrofitted Beta 79s. They did jump on the black column and lantern bandwagon quite early as Sheffield is the only city I know of to use black Alpha 8s and Beta 79s. The curvy columns are quite recognisable, they're still installing them today so hopefully that style will live on.

Providing they don't ditch the Arcs when the PFI starts, it sounds very much like they'll end up like Newcastle mentioned above. There are still a few unique Urbis installations in and around the city centre, but any further out and it's all pretty bog standard now.


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 05, 2012 11:39 pm 
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Well Sheffield's slightly shambolic hotchpotch of styles had a sort of regional identity all on its own!! :lol:
The Liverpool c-shaped brackets and Z9480s are distinctive (though not unique as the bracket is also used in Liverpool) and I think the Beta 79/99s in black are probably unique to the city. The curvy columns are a nice example of quite modern columns still having a unique design.

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PostPosted: Fri Apr 06, 2012 10:47 am 
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I think Sheffield might as well not bother with a PFI at this rate, what with the city having its own identity. Wonky, duct taped columns and dayburning lanterns! What more could we ask for. :lol:

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PostPosted: Sun Apr 08, 2012 1:37 pm 
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Bath's lighting is different to some of the others listed because they use black Iridiums on black painted columns, so it's not quite as plain or as boring other areas but it's not exactly great.

I know the HA still install SOX in some areas of West Glamorgan (Neath and Port Talbot).

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PostPosted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 12:38 am 
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Black Iridiums on black columns, whilst it is a little better than white iridiums they are still iridiums. It is still buying an off-the-shelf lantern and then plonking it straight onto a plain column... in terms of regional identity it's a bit like First Groups new bus livery being unveilled - it is the same in every area they operate but will have names like LEEDS in big letters down the side with landmarks within the letters: it's a very small token attempt to localise something very generic.

The not using brackets procedure came up in discussion in York on Thursday when I was with the guys who were installing the new columns... one of the Wakefield crew was watching a York operative wiring in the breaker, and mentioned how the operative hadn't looped enough cable within the column for if a bracket were to be installed. I actually piped up and said it's very unusual for new columns to have brackets, and the other York operative backed me up by saying "he sees everything that gets put up and knows the score" (referring to me).... The only new columns I know of getting brackets are the two or three that went in at Grimston Bar a month or so ago, and that was because the lanterns were in the middle of the trees (and before that was a couple at Towthorpe crossroads near the Strensall army barracks, they got their brackets a couple of years ago.... otherwise it's just stub brackets for lanterns that are side entry only like Opalos and 2600s)

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