WRTL 2015

Lantern acquired in May 2004.

The lantern's original location is unknown, but it may have come from the Pride Park area of the City, as the 2015 was chosen to light the original footpaths when the area opened in the mid 1990s, although the majority of these lanterns had bright red canopies and spigot castings. Also, the capacitor on the lantern's gear tray is dated to 1996, so this would fit. The only thing that I would say to suggest otherwise is that all of the other 2015s and their columns on Pride Park were originally painted red (now pink due to the colour fading over time!), whereas this one has a black canopy and base casting - and this has splatters of 'Derbyshire Green' paint on it from when its column was painted. The only other place that I have seen them in use in the City is on a footpath near Pear Tree railway station, but I think those columns are either painted silver, or are unpainted.

The bowl has gone slightly yellow, but it can hardly be seen in this photograph. The canopy is in need of a repainting as it is currently quite scratched. The S100 minicell can just be seen on the canopy too.

From above, the scratching to the canopy can be seen easily.

The gear is mounted on a panel just below the canopy and the lamp is mounted on the underside of the panel. It took me a while to work out how to get to the lamp but eventually I realised that the panel swings back and the lamp becomes accessible. I was quite surprised at the state of the lamp - it was very black (not surprisingly, as it may have been manufactured in January 1996) but still worked when I tried it, but it soon gave out a smell that resembled burnt toast, so I switched it off just to be safe! The ballast has been removed since this photograph was taken, to replace the failed one in the Vandalite Skye.

The bowl and gear frame are all secured to the base spigot by a single allen screw. This photograph was taken after the spigot had been cleaned.

The bowl was also cleaned - there was some mossy gunge in the base of it but it wiped off easily.

The cable is exactly the right diameter to fit into the hole designed for the column securing screw, which was very convenient as it meant that the lantern could be mounted without the cable getting in the way underneath.

As always, the alternate photograph of the lantern showing how it looks with the flash switched on!

The canopy was resprayed and so the lantern now looks much better. The restored canopy is shown above; with a SELC 849 minicell fitted in the 20 mm hole. The orange glow is from the Alpha 8, switched on to try to show how shiny the canopy now is. As can be seen, I didn't really need to do this!

Lamp warm-up video:

The following couple of pictures show a 2015 in-situ:

This 2015 is on the Pride Park riverside footpath - my example may have been used in the same area. The column was originally painted a darker red than it is today - all that has happened is that the paint has faded, and so the red now looks more pink! Unfortunately, the lantern's bowl has been damaged at some point, which has allowed moisture and dirt to enter the lantern.

Vandalite Skye | GEC Z8430CM

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