Thorn Alpha 6 Preliminary Photographs

These three lanterns are very unusual as they have never been used and are still in their original Thorn boxes. They were found during a big clearout at the Derby City Council depot in one of the old stable blocks - the depot at one time being used for some of the Derby Corporation trams. One of the managers was leaving in the week of the 26th January 2004, so before he left wanted to clear out some of the rooms the city council used to use for their street lighting storerooms in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He noticed a set of Thorn boxes in a corner, and so asked Jeremy if he could identify what they were. When Jeremy saw that they carried the name "Alpha 6", he could hardly believe it! Derby used to have a lot of these lanterns right up until about 1990, when the last SLI/H lamps were produced, but then were all scrapped when the existing lamp supplies ran out.

Fortunately, thanks to some of these lamps being retained for safe keeping before they all disappeared, the lanterns can be run as intended without any need to convert them to SOX. They are an incredibly rare lantern now as it is, and so ones in such a perfect condition as these must be like gold!

The very grubby boxes. Actually, I cleaned them up before this photograph was taken but they still look a mess!

This is the label on the box for the Integrally geared 200 Watt version - the '1200.T' means this. The various other numbers on the box are entries for the lighting database - this is a coding system that all components (from bowl clips to entire lanterns) have, and is still used today by Derby City Council. I don't think 'Thorn Alpha 6' has been in the database for some time however!

This label shows that an Integrally geared 140 Watt version is inside.

Thorn have, for a long time, sold their lantern bowls separately to the lantern. The Alpha 6 is no different to this.

This label for the gearless 200 Watt version carries a date of the 22nd July 1988. If only it had been a couple of days later...curiously, the 200 Watt geared version carries 01/1978 as a manufacturing date on its capacitor, so what this stamped date from ten years later represents, I am not certain.

Integrally Geared 140 Watt | Remote Geared 200 Watt | Integral Geared 200 Watt | Installation and Wiring Instructions

Philips MA 50 | GEC Z9554M

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