81BA. Station Road, Barlaston, Staffordshire Thanks to Louis Cunningham for discovering this Survivor. Located adjacent the eponymous, but closed, Barlaston Railway Station, is a 25 ft (8 m) Abacus base-hinged tubular steel column supporting a GEC Z8536; the gear-in-head version of the Z8526 'Turtle' lantern. The column faces towards a small garden area, although I suspect that the area may have served as an extra part of the small car park previously, with the Z8536 providing lighting over it - a plaque nearby states that the landscaping was completed by Staffordshire County Council's Community Programme Agency on behalf of British Rail in August 1987.
Optimistically, despite the station having closed in 2004, and the platforms being gated off, the station's sign remains attached to the column. The platform signage remains too, as does the lighting - this comprises Urbis ZX1s and ZX12s.
A 1980s' Royce Thompson P5 photocell is fitted to the lantern, though with the station having become disused, the light may not work either.
The hinge appears to be damaged, causing the bowl to sag slightly at the front of the lantern.
This example features the same style of bowl as features on my own Z8526, with a white diffusion spot positioned below the lamp, suggesting that it may be an earlier Z8536.
Looking the other way, I was pleased to spot that someone who understood how base-hinged columns work designed the landscaped area - sufficient clearance has been left between the two raised beds to allow the column to be lowered for maintenance, without any part of the construction hindering the full lowering moment.
The bowl is a little too grubby to tell whether a lamp remains in the lantern or not, though from this angle, all of the paint from the diffusion spot appears to have worn away.
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