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 Post subject: Railway station lighting
PostPosted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 10:07 am 
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Simon Cornwell has documented GEC fluorescent station platform lighting of the past with his GEC Z8285, GEC Z8288, and GEC Z8290 lanterns.

According to Mazeteam, Hull and Scarborough still have some of the Z8288 lanterns whilst Selby has some of the Z8290. It appears that these lanterns must still be more common in the North East than elsewhere for this was spotted on Michael Portillo's Great British Railway Journeys on BBC2/ iPlayer.

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The canopy and bowl appear different to that of the GEC Z8290 though.


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 10:32 am 
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Bradford Interchange had something similar but these have now been removed. Wakefield Kirkgate appears to have a few but one i saw yesterday was smashed and the lamp holders were hanging out. I can't remember if Scunthorpe has them.

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PostPosted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 11:02 am 
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Some screen shots from iPlayer of the Scarborough installation.

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As for Bridlington, Simon Cornwell has just replied to me with:

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It's definitely not the Z8290. So I'm afraid this lantern remains unidentified. (GEC always allocated new catalogue numbers for variants so it won't be a Z8290).

I'm sure some old post-top and under-canopy fluorescents still exist on the network; but whether they're GEC versions remains to be seen!


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 11:30 am 
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I saw one of them lanterns on Ebay in 2003. This was before I discovered what they were or that enthusiasts existed.

I wish I bought it now.


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PostPosted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 2:43 am 
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I wish I'd have known about that - I'd have probably bought it too! I wouldn't have known what it was for, but as I have a liking for large lights, this would have gone with the other stuff I had at the time!!

I have some better pics of the ones on scarborough platforms, but I'll have to fish them out. That Bridlington one is still there. There's 3 in Hull, but I didn't see any in Scunthorpe station when I was there about 3 months ago.

Just found a pic I took of the Brid ones... there's three in the portico area - two say "bridlington" but one doesn't
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EDIT: just found a couple of scarborough pics
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 7:04 am 
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The interesting thing about the Scarborough ones is that the columns look newer than the lanterns. I wonder if they got reused?


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PostPosted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 11:16 pm 
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Wonder if any still have bayonett lampholders? You never know, the stations could have a large stock of spare 5' 80w  BC tubes!!!!!


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 2:34 pm 
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I would have thought they went to bi-pin lamp holders long ago, especially since until the 90s, conventional fluorescent lighting was widely used for under platform canopy lighting - the railways would have used vast numbers of tubes. I suspect it was the demise of the 2ft 40w tube which eventually saw off the last of the GEC8260s on what was the former southern region in my part of the world.


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PostPosted: Wed Jan 13, 2010 3:18 am 
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The scarborough ones are on Abacus drop-down columns... and somehow I don't think these were around when the lanterns were first installed! Which makes their survival even more amazing.

It's a shame the Z8260's down south weren't converted to bi-pin too... maybe it's a Northern thing to keep going with what there apready is! :lol: I've said before about the Phosco 2ft fluorescent post tops outside Malton bus depot (opposite the train station), those are still working and will likely be using bi-pin tubes, so why the Z8260's couldn't have been converted I don't know...
All I need is a dark night (preferrably a power cut in the area) at a certain station in the GM area, and I would be able to lower an abacus column that lies on a former platform (line filled in) and look inside the Z8260 to see if the tubes are BC or BP...

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PostPosted: Wed Jan 13, 2010 3:21 am 
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Abacus columns do date back to the mid 1960s but the base taper on those looks like a newer version - that was my point about the columns looking newer.

On the GEC8260, I believe it was always for bi-pin rather than bayonet fluorescent tubes. In many cases they were on 1960s columns which would have been deemed life expired and there is also a trend to increase platform lighting levels which would have seen their demise. Power consumption wise, they would be about the same as a ZX1 running 70w SON....


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