Streetlamps - a strange irony...

[Andrew Gabriel]

Lots of UK towns are currently replacing streetlamps.
In particular, low pressure sodium (of which we used loads on the UK)
seems to be being phased out everywhere, and the last of the post WWII
concrete columns are all now at end of life (although most have long-
since been removed).

I just caught the team doing the road next to mine, and grabbed the
Philips MI36 lantern off a column, complete with its 36W SOX lamp and
gear. Thought I'd grab one before LPS is nowhere to be found anymore.
It's damn bright when fired up in my livingroom!
I also have a 135W SOX lamp, but no lantern or gear to run it.

The new lanterns take PL folded tube compact fluorescents. They
apparently have electronic control gear and brightness is controlled
by a radio signal. Normally they will dim after midnight, but this
can be overriden if there's some special event taking place. I notice
that in the smaller side roads, they default to being dimmer in the
first place. Some of the main road lamps are using electrodeless
fluorescents.

Anyway, this got me thinking that we've gone round in a circle...

In the late 1940's when many of these roads were first lit, it was
common for the sideroads to use lanterns with a pair of 2' 40W T12
fluorescents, and main roads using lanterns with three 5' 80W T12
fluorescents (both these tube ratings being long obsolete now).

These were replaced with Mercury vapor or LPS lamps in the 1970s,
and sometimes with HPS or Metal Halide in the 2000's.

Now we're going back to fluorescent again, sometimes after an
abortive attempt at using LEDs.

 

[TimR]

Lots of UK towns are currently replacing streetlamps.

In particular, low pressure sodium (of which we used loads on the UK)

seems to be being phased out everywhere, and the last of the post WWII

concrete columns are all now at end of life (although most have long-

I lived in Germany from 2003 - 2008 courtesy of my employer (military).

I was a bit surprised to see the street lights were all tube fluourescent. I didn't see any of the familiar US LPS.

Most of them were turned off late at night. And cars had one taillight that could be left on without draining the battery, for street parking.