I seem to recall that it was on eBay, but we are talking a long time ago, so I'm not absolutely certain on that!

Certainly, if there were others, I don't remember them, and I can't check the Internet Archive for old versions of the Designplan website at present to confirm this as it's offline, typically! Even this version is quite glary, owing to the non-coated lamp employed, so an opal bowl option would have been handy, even in the discharge days. The ones at my secondary school were SON-E, bar one, which was MBF (with a far more yellowed bowl too!).

No, just the standard MBF phosphor, though I agree that the camera has enhanced the appearance to make the lamp seem warmer.

The 'A' represents medium pressure, whereas 'B' is high pressure (I don't know why they're not the other way around, when 'C' is low pressure, however). MAF is quite rare, though according to this video, a modern MAF lamp looks identical in operation to an MBF: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pJi5e4KGaJKEd9U .

Yeah, a very good innings, even with it being a Philips PIA.

Funnily, I've just been speaking to someone bearing more than a passing resemblance to your good self - very strange! Thanks for the good wishes too!

The current choice is a Canon SX70HS bridge camera - it struggles a bit with 50 Hz frequency flicker if I'm photographing a lantern that is lit, but in good sunlight, with a blue sky, it produces some excellent close-ups...as will be seen when the next site update lands (hopefully soon)!

@@StreetLightOnline I'm sure looking forward to the next update - I have a feeling it will be a big one since it's a couple of years since the last update

Ohh yes! Hopefully, it'll be up before the end of this year - nearly 400 new Survivor articles at the time of writing - phew!

@@StreetLightOnline Not sure if it is a bit late but on Gutteridge Lane near Romford there is an old concrete column submerged in foliage but still in plain sight

Found it! What's the story with that one - was there a premises on that piece of land in the past, do you know?

The Philips system sees the number and letter swapped every ten years - in the instances where the number is first, as with your mystery lamp, the production decade was odd (i.e. 1970s, 90s, 2010s, for example). Where it's the opposite, the lamp was produced in an 'even' decade. Thus, sometimes, you have to look for other clues that would suggest a particular decade being more likely than another would be - is yours in a cardboard carton or wrapped in paper, for example? The latter would certainly hint at a 1979 lamp, rather than 1999. Month 'M' would be December, regardless.

In the case of the one in the video, as the column was replacing an existing one in the same location, the hole in the ground was there already, so swapping over was easy. In the case of my own, it was all hand-digging using shovels and trowels to the depth (and width) of the root section, which was far more time-consuming - it was lucky that I had an inset day from school just before the column was due to be installed! Most actual lighting contractors use a special twin-headed shovel, known as a "Post Hole Shovel" ( www.diy.com/departments/bulldog-post-hole-digger-l-332mm/5013693051117_BQ.prd?storeId=1052 ), which can speed the process up. Columns are sometimes placed into a pre-installed plastic sleeve, as you thought, although most are just plonked straight into the ground, and secured with concrete that should fill the hole until slightly below ground level.

It doesn't in reality; just the 50 Hz flicker being picked up by the camera - all the more here because of multiple brightnesses and colours that it was trying to balance out!

Absolutely - 10 years for an LED lantern would be good going, given that some LED kit from even more recently than that is being ripped out now in favour of the latest LED offerings!

You might be better with a free-standing mini column on a base plate (the same as what I use for my post-tops) for convenience and portability. Typically, the plate is 300 mm squared (and about 10 mm thick, for stability), with the 76 mm tube welded into the centre. Congratulations on your first acquisition, incidentally...here's to the next 199 (my current total)!

@@StreetLightOnline Where can you get them from? And how much do they cost?

Somewhere locally that does steel fabrication should be able to assist you - just describe (or draw out - you can use my pictures on the site as a guide) what you're after, and they ought to assist. Cost-wise, I'd say no more than £100 as a ballpark maximum, although the freshly-restored HW-898 is positioned alongside me while I type this (it just needs its gear wiring up, and then will be ready to roll), and the engineering work involved with that, along with the special mini column that I had made, was a *bit* more than that figure...it was worth it, though - pictures and video coming "soon", all being well!

Gosh, that's a bit novel! I'd guess that they would be conversions, though SOX for subway lighting is an unusual choice, so I wonder what the thinking was in doing that.

I'm not familiar with the location, but are these the lanterns to which you were referring: maps.app.goo.gl/Fs1rzauekHLCtVZF6 ? If so, they're ZX2s - the way to tell is that these have flat-bottomed bowls, whereas the deep bowl on a ZX3 is curved - see these examples in Derby Railway Station car park for a comparison: maps.app.goo.gl/VRKqChGhUS337SgR9 .

I didn't know that they had been given an LED option. I guess that there mustn't have been sufficient popularity for the designs to remain in production, and maybe there were reliability issues. It's probably also the case that much of the former WRTL range wasn't produced for long after the Philips takeover - the lucractive Luma being an exception, of course.

Realistically, scouring the well-known auction website (and similar) is probably the only way that you might find such lamps in the modern era, but they do still crop up from time-to-time, as this lamp of mine was such a purchase.

Despite no longer living at the house where the column (that started my hobby) was positioned outside, when I knew that it was to be replaced, I was determined to save the lantern!

I think that they are - they're still listed on the Philips site, and Derby still has huge numbers of the things installed.

Interesting that they were swapped over - I bet that even the older columns weren't in that bad a condition at the time of removal, and certainly not with the newer ones.

I'd never visited prior to now (except to collect some Thorn 8 Watters from one of the maintenance lads at Bewdley a year or so back) - it's well worth a (return) visit, even with it being a bit of a trek for you - go to Bridgnorth this time, and set up camp in one of the Cliff Railway vehicles!

I'm glad that you enjoyed it! I'd wanted to film the steam locomotives too (for that proper nostalgic feeling!), but I was always travelling on trains hauled by them, rather than being able to view them passing.

The latter; though it is identical in appearance to the contemporary Tridonic products.

@@StreetLightOnline So this is a Tridonic ZRM 4000 that rebranded as Thorn Super APU? I've seen Thorn Super APU that pulsing for a min when it don't see a lamp. It would be interesting how this ignitor behaves with cycling lamps and hot restrike of HPS and MH lamps, as their timed pulsing is very interesting to me.

I'm just trying to think if I ever saw any Alpha 2000s out on the road with a cycling lamp, and I don't think that I did, so there must be anti-cycle circuitry installed (I do remember seeing odd examples that weren't lit, so it wasn't just very efficient maintenance!). I'll have to try a hot restrike on my own example, to see how the ignitor behaves.

I'm not certain, in all honesty - the detail doesn't seem to be provided, but with it being 4000 K, I would expect a decent CRI (in the 80s, surely)...it needs an amber filter to make it more SOX-like - that'll drop the figure somewhat!

@@StreetLightOnline Thorn also makes these in 5700K, 3000K, 2700K, and even 2200K. You get two CRI options for the 3000K and 4000K versions, that being 70 and 80.

I remember walking along a street lit with 5700 K Stelas, and then onto another with 4000 K Isaros - my eyes were so adjusted to the bluer shade that the Isaros appeared positively warm by comparsion!

@@StreetLightOnline can you imagine what it would be like walking on a street with 5700K LEDs to a street that’s fully SOX? 🤯

Ooh...retinal crash imminent! The famous video of mine where numerous lanterns ran together played havoc with my eyes - too much brightness and too many colour temperatures made the SOX lighting start appearing pink - heaven knows what the combined CRI was of that lot!

Fine by me!

Given that the '66'-plate Mickleovers are set to be replaced in the latest batch of new vehicles, I guess that the Indigos might end up being cascaded within a couple of years, particularly when one of the branded buses was lost to fire quite recently.

​@@StreetLightOnline Oh yeah I forgot about that

I didn't find anything that resembled the dodgy material in this one - the original lampholder wiring was the braided heat resistant type, but this didn't look to be asbestos as the material was thinner, and more fine. Thus, you shouldn't need to hold your breath if you are lucky enough to save your local example!

Good luck! It's possible that a P179 might exist in a collection (possibly, Bob Cookson's, as even when his excellent site was operational, what he'd pictured on there was only the tip of a much larger iceberg!), though it's certainly the case that there don't seem to be any saved examples documented online, as you say. I missed out on the Derby one (Local Lights > Post-Tops > Gamma 3 (visible in the background as for some reason, I never documented it)) as I didn't know that East Street was to be given a revamp!

⁠@@StreetLightOnline Very interesting! I wonder what happened to his website though? I’m sorry to hear you didn’t photograph that P179 before it was removed, let alone save it. I can save another P179 for you if you want!

Thankfully, it was only a small website, so I think that all of it was saved to the Archive: web.archive.org/web/20180206121146/www.eastbournes-street-lighting.co.uk/ - unlike mine, which would take up an entire server of its own (especially with all of the new material that I am adding for the next update)! I really can't understand why I didn't photograph it - I've checked my original folder from 2006, and while I photographed just about everything else in the City Centre on that date, I never did the P179...stupid younger me!

@@StreetLightOnline *Update:* I received an email from one of the electricians that installed the new LED streetlights on my cousin’s block and he told me to meet him on site and investigate the columns around the estate! Seeing as the remaining lanterns have not been replaced yet, I’m hoping this will provide a good opportunity to get the lanterns saved as some of them are incredibly rare (especially the P179s) and it’d be an absolute shame not to have them saved. I wasn’t expecting this at all, tbh!

Wow, that's a turn up for the books - I'm sure that you were expecting no response at all, or some generic "we don't give out lanterns"-type response - fingers crossed!

Little beggars - pecker by name, pecker by nature (oo-er missus)! I've seen one in a garden further down the street in the past, but it's rare, and I've never observed one in my own garden yet.

Yes, if you like, though I think that there will be more opportunities to photograph the new fleet before it is unleashed on the general public, so if you wished to take your own too, that might also be possible - I gather that a similar publicity event will be held in Burton.

Yep - definitely a "grab the camera" moment!

Heh - it's just as well that the Villager route is relatively flat, and there are plenty of open sections where a good breeze will give the vehicles an extra push! I have a Corgi model of Villager Dart 940 on top of my PC, as it happens.

Still here for the time being!

​@@StreetLightOnlineThey'll probably be rented to notts+derby like the old buses for the threes were last year.

Assuming that they don't go pop before that can happen!

Thanks - I'm glad to hear it!

I know of odd examples here-and-there, but you're right that they tend to look a bit unloved! What age is your one? The one filmed here is also NOS, and dates from 1982. Yes, that's a possibility - the comment didn't even go into the "Held for review" box, which I have as a default for any comments received, so it could be the inclusion of the link that made your comment disappear into a black hole!

​@StreetLightOnline it has 12/84 on the Cap and I think the lamp is August '85 so sometime around then. Came with one of them nice pearl Thorn SON lamps like yours did! (Have some pics on lighting gallery if you're interested, Same username as here, Southwalessox) there's some single and twin mount ones in a carpark near me, would like to save them but don't know how much luck I'll have. Ones had all it's black paint stripped over the years and it's completely white, other than the post mount.

Ooh, fantastic - the pearl lamps create a very unique appearance! Apparently, the machinery used in producing these dated back to the Atlas days, when their MB/U lamps featured a pearl coating too. It's good that the dates are so readily available - I always try to think of what the people on the production lines would have been doing on those dates...in the case of yours, I hope that the operative was due to have his or her mullet reshaped that very evening! Wow, I've never seen one where the paint has degraded to that extent - most unusual! I hope that you have some success in saving them.

No; the First and Last railtour was a few years earlier, on the 15th May 2011. 2014 was when the C Stock Explorer was held, however.

@@StreetLightOnline I miss the c stock

Well, you never know what might happen, but could I ask that my name be omitted from the letter, please? It's probably also best not to include the names of other enthusiasts, unless they have expressed permission to be included.

@@StreetLightOnline I’ve asked other members if their names can be included in the letter and so far, a few people have actually responded back and gave me permission to do so. Don’t worry, the letter is only shown in private and any names will be kept off public domain.

I wonder if they still have the tooling somewhere that could be adapted! As I'm "in the industry" outside of the hobby, I wouldn't really want to be mentioned on anything that goes to a manufacturer, regardless of where it is to be displayed, in all honesty - that's the drawback to the street lighting industry - it's rather close-knit!

@@StreetLightOnline It could be possible, as Schréder has discontinued the original Teceo in favour of the gen2 incarnation.

If only Philips would relaunch the iconic MA series in LED! I photographed some surviving 50s and Alpha 4s today, incidentally - it seems dreadfully wrong to class these as 'Survivors', when I suspect that they are considerably younger than me, but they are going soon, and they're not exactly ten-a-penny any longer!

I am impressed that you knew the date, as I certainly didn't! Your kind words there have made me blush - thank you for the good wishes! Likewise, I didn't think that I would ever be able to collect lanterns when my hobby began, and look where we are now - the 200th will enter the Collection at the weekend (in theory) - don't tell your family that this is where it can lead! Oh, very much so - I have been busy compiling the next site update ever since I uploaded the last one - I hope that it will be this year that it arrives...still plenty of Survivors to visit and photograph around the UK, but I hope to sweep up as many as I can in the next few weeks, weather pending!

@StreetLightOnline haha I'm already past the 100 mark after 3 yrs of collecting lol. What lantern do you have arriving this weekend? I should hopefully have a NOS Thorn Piazza arriving. Yeah still a few survivors about that I'd like to photograph too, but not driving makes that a bit difficult unfortunately, though there's a few good ones here in South Wales, if you're ever in the area let me know and I'll send a list of their locations. Looking forward to the next update!

There's no stopping you! Oh, I'm sworn to secrecy on that one - it is rather rare, however! ;-) Is the Piazza the original type, or the later one, do you know? You're probably best not driving, as you just end up paying a fortune for fuel and vehicle upkeep with Survivors being scattered all over the place - I can vouch for that! Thanks - that sounds good; I'll bear you in mind! Are there any lanterns that you're after currently?

@StreetLightOnline haha fair enough, very intriguing 🤣 The Piazza is (should be) the old square version. I've heard similar opinions r.e driving haha. As for lanterns I'm after it's a list as long as my arm lol, my most wanted other than some decorative lanterns are the Thorn Triumph, ZX3 (Mid and very shallow polycarbonate bowl), GR200 and one of them old part night Zodion cells with the black base and clear top. Also looking to increase my Concrete bracket collection.

Heh - always leave them guessing! Ah, good - although both types are renowned for bowl yellowing, the earlier type seems to be better quality - I've seen many of the newer type where the lamp has scorched the plastic. Yeah, some of the drives that I've been on have taken forever as there are just no high speed roads...still, it's worth it when you end up photographing something rare and old at the end! Ah, I've none of those in my "surplus" pile at present, but never say never...the original SS9 might be more of a challenge, mind you!

Ah, that is a shame - you wonder what prompted the complete replacement if the lanterns were running LED lamps quite happily until now.

@@StreetLightOnline​​⁠ Admittedy, the LED retrofits did a poor job at lighting the access road, which is probably why they’ve been replaced. Either that, or the council earmarks any non-LED lanterns for replacement, regardless if they’re already running LED lamps.

I guess that the limited optical capabilities of the P178 could also be a factor. If you're suffering withdrawal symptoms, a trip to the hospital will see you right...Boston's Pilgrim Hospital, to be exact, as there are P178s in the grounds there - some still run SON, but a lot have been LED corned: maps.app.goo.gl/CpLBCu5kfNTeTCDd8 - these may, or may not, be a feature of a future new Survivor article..!

@@StreetLightOnline Yeah, the translucent opal bowls did not help with how dim the LED cobs were! I would much rather have the P178s retrofitted with Philips TrueForce LED lamps instead of a complete lantern replacement. As crazy as it sounds, I have actually complained to the council about the new LED lanterns they installed. They’re way too bright and dazzling and they just don’t look as aesthetically pleasing as the P178s! From looking at your examples, it’s great to see that these lanterns are still in service, let alone so many! I really do hope that they remain for more years to come.

The TrueForce lamps would have been an interesting test for brightness levels - I've never (knowingly) seen any lit for myself yet. No harm in voicing your concerns to the relevant authorities, though I know that you're sensible enough to realise that now that they're changed, that is the end of the road for the P178s, sadly! Indeed, that car park would be Nirvana for you!

I favour doing exactly that as those loose fibres can cause skin irritation. My own 204 had not been used for long enough for the shedding to start, but my 150 W 203 was bad - the method that I used is described on its page: www.streetlightonline.co.uk/SGS203_150W_photographs.htm , with the finish being Rust-oleum Mode Cream Gloss spray paint.

​@@StreetLightOnline OK, I will try that. I will have to get rid of the giant pile of dead wasps in the lantern first! It dates from 1985, so I'm not surprised at the amount of dirt. I scrubbed and sanded my SGS203 which was caked in lichen and it turned out pretty well

Decaying swarms of wasps are always tremendous fun, especially as the smell is not for someone with a weak stomach! Wow - if it is from 1985, that must be one of the oldest 204s in existence - it didn't even make the catalogues until about 1988!

​@@StreetLightOnline the eBay listing says it is from 1985, and it is still running on its original ballast

That's good going!