70AA. Off Stourport Road, Kidderminster, Worcestershire With thanks to Dwight for informing me of these Survivors. Installed at the entrance to an industrial premises are three 5 m 'Sheerline' aluminium columns, with 'Type 4' side-entry brackets, all made by Thorn. Two of the three columns support Beta 8 lanterns (AEI Junior Amberlines) for 55 Watt SOX (low pressure sodium) lamps, while the third supports a Beta 79, running the more unusual 80 Watt MBF (mercury vapour) lamp - SON (high pressure sodium) lamps being the more common choice for these fittings. The Beta 79 may have served as a replacement for another Beta 8, given that Thorn discontinued the latter in 1983, in favour of the new Beta 2 a year later. 1984 was also the year that Thorn changed the original aluminium-canopied Beta 79 to a type that used a GRP canopy instead, of which the type seen here is.
The two columns supporting Beta 8s are installed opposite each other at the junction into the site. Following slight remodelling of the junction, owing to the buildings on the left having replaced an earlier construction, the columns gained a splash of yellow paint around their bases, as a way of improving their visibility to motorists driving past them.
As can be seen, the left-hand example is dayburning, and probably has for a while, as the lamp is burning far redder than a healthy SOX lamp would. The second example was doing the same in 2022, but as it is now unlit, I suspect that its lamp has worn out.
Only the middle of the lamp still glowed the familiar SOX yellow.
How I have missed seeing SOX lamps that have clocked up hundreds of hours - LEDs just don't have these little quirks!
The second lamp does look very worn around the electrodes, so probably has reached end-of-life. The beefy ballast is visible above the reflector / gear tray within the lantern - these will keep running the lamp until it is completely exhausted, whereas other control gear types will detect and shut down a failing lamp.
Apart from a small amount of sediment gathered in the lowest portion of the bowl, the lantern is in good condition, particularly if it has been abandoned.
The Beta 79 was also dayburning, suggesting that however the lights used to be controlled was removed when the building alterations occurred.
The GRP canopy appeared far too clean for a lantern of this age, and may have been painted as a way of preventing it from becoming ingrained with lichen spores. The polycarbonate bowl was a different story, however - it had discoloured quite noticeably, owing to UV degradation produced by the lamp, and sunlight.
A little further south of these installations, and on the other side of the road, adjacent Oldington Lane, are a number of 25 ft (8 m) 'Highway-X' columns with single-arm, side-entry Highway brackets, dating from the 1960s, and made by Concrete Utilities. These supported P151 lanterns, made by CU's lantern division, Phosware; the lanterns being designed to run a 250 - 400 Watt MBF lamp.
The lanterns feature prismatic glass refractor bowls; thus, unlike the Beta 79's bowl, will not suffer from UV degradation.
This is the installation that is situated at the front of the site.
The same bowl design was used on the AEI Brampton, which went on to become the Atlas / Thorn Alpha 7.
A number of identical columns are installed along the side of the site - these are probably disused, as the column doors cannot be accessed, owing to railings having been installed in front of them.
Both the bowl and lamp are missing here.
Two very corroded aluminium reflector panels remain within the lantern.
Assuming that the bowls were produced by Holophane, two very different eras of that company's products exist side-by-side in this picture - the S-Line LED lantern attached to the tubular steel column on Oldington Lane is a Holophane product too.
The P151 uses the standard (at the time) Phosware (Phosco) 'Oddie' key method of securing the bowl retention ring, with the key being at the fronts of these bowls, and the hinge at the back.
The next column had to jostle for position with a wooden telecommunications pole installed in the vicinity.
The gap is wider than would appear here, but it is still close.
Another bowl-less example followed.
Thankfully, the lamp was still in place here. The small section of visible arc tube prior to the coating being applied to the elliptical lamp provides little assistance in determining whether this is still an MBF installation, or if the lantern was converted to SON.
The same installation, but from another angle.
The lamp is angled within the lantern to be at an optimum position for the bowl to distribute its beam as effectively as possible.
The final column supported a GEC Z8430CM instead - a likely early replacement for a damaged P151.
This too had a missing bowl, although it was captured hanging between August 2009 and May 2019 by Google Street View - an excellent amount of time to test the hinge's sturdiness! By October 2022, however, the bowl had gone.
The Z8430CM is GEC's version of the P151, and is similar in appearance (even minus its bowl).
I wonder whether the (presumably, now smashed) bowl and support ring are still to be found on the ground below - if the outer rim survived, the glassware should carry a manufacturing date code, which would provide a date for when the lantern was fitted.
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