In the last two years there has been an invasion of Thorn LED lanterns in Durham, Newcastle, North and South Tyneside, Sunderland, Gateshead and Northumberland.
In Newcastle the thousands of Arcs installed during the PFI have begun to be replaced with Thorn Isaro Pros of varying sizes.
Sunderland and South Tyneside are using a combination of R2L2 and CiviTecQ lanterns. These are replacing pre PFI son lanterns and the Iridiums installed during the PFI.
North Tyneside is using the CiviTecQ.
Durham is using both R2L2 and CiviTecQ along with Amperas and Axias.
Gateshead is currently replacing all its main road lanterns with LED from a mix of SON iridiums and Cosmo sapphires with R2L2 in place of 250W SON and CiviTecQ in place of the lower wattage Cosmo lanterns. They are running warm white LED which makes much better driving than the standard.
In Northumberland as part of its replacement scheme the main lantern of choice has been the R2L2 running cool white, although some Amperas have appeared towards the end.
In all I’m pleased with the Thorn lanterns, they seem to outperform most of the others. I haven’t noticed too many design faults, too many Amperas dipping forward in the wind lately.The Arc's in Newcastle have actually been replaced by Phillips Lumistreet Gen1 and Gen2, and high mast lanterns replaced with Phosco P855's and P860's.
North Tyneside was originally using Thorn CiviTecQ, but its latest replacements use the Isaro Pro.
Gateshead now use 3000k CiviTecQ's for main roads and Schreder Axia 1 and 2 for side roads.
Stockton were one of the first to convert its entire stock to LED, and use only Schreder, namely the Ampera and Axia 1 and 2.
The A19 between Sunderland and the Tees flyover has the most interesting lighting at the moment. Starting at the Tees Flyover its partly lit by High Mast Phosco Columns with Schreder Omistar floods.
It then switches to a section of MA60's. Heading North away from the flyover they are followed by Ampera's, then Luma's, then a short unlit section.
Between Hartlepool and Sunderland there are 2 sections lit by Thorn Alpha 2000's, 1 large section by Siemens Broadways, a small section with MA 60's survived but a long stretch of those were replaced around 2 - 3 years ago with new columns and Ampera's.
What I find interesting is that the vast son-t lit section is still receiving replacement son-t lanterns. ZX2's, Sapphires, and Iridiums were most commonly used, with the last Iridiums going up within the last 6 months or so.
Now however Phosco P680's have shot up in large numbers! I have a feeling they haven't been set up properly as i'm sure these lanterns have several bulb/reflector positions and the optics are simply terrible! Very patchy on the road with dark spots and almost 'waves' of light (cant think of how else to describe it) but they really aren't very good at all.