174E. Small Heath Railway Station, Golden Hillock Road, Small Heath, Birmingham Located on a long-disused island platform are a number of Abacus base-hinged columns, all supporting GEC Z8260 lanterns, each designed for running two 2 ft (600 mm) 40 Watt linear fluorescent lamps - this lantern being popular for lighting British Railways infrastructure in the 1970s and continuing to be seen (post-privatisation) into the early 2000s. With the platform being disused, the lighting was never updated to match that on the one remaining island platform, as was the platform structure generally, creating a rather peculiar visible time capsule to when the platform still saw trains stopping at it.

Five identical double-arm columns, all supporting Z8260s, are visible here.

Another five columns are visible on the rest of the platform, though four of these are doubled-up; presumably, because this was the 'exit' end of the platform, and so the passenger footfall would be higher here.

The gear tray and bowl are missing from one of the lanterns, leaving only its aluminium canopy attached to the bracket.

The bowls on the remaining Z8260s are of a slightly different design to the one on my own Z8260 is - these are polycarbonate (which has become translucent with age), and feature moulded refractor prisms. I suspect that they could be a later version.

The other lantern on this double-arm bracket shows signs of slight water ingress.

The column located closest to the station building had its bracket positioned parallel to the platform edges.

The bowl to the left-hand lantern remains sufficiently transparent to reveal that it still retains its lamps, suggesting that the others probably are the same.

The more observant viewers may have spotted these Thorn Alpha 3s in the background of the first picture - these are on the Small Heath Highway adjacent.

These must be some of the last Alpha 3s made by Thorn before the lantern was discontinued in the early 1990s.

Seeing a lantern that has its roots in the late 1950s fitted with a modern Telensa radio node (replacing a standard NEMA photocell control) seems very peculiar indeed!

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