Everyone on here will be familiar with the daytime appearance of the classic 1960s ELECO Golden Ray GR501, which was a staple lantern in many UK towns for many years:


This ELECO GR501 with a 35W SOX bulb was photographed in Clacton-on-Sea in February 2009.

In Clacton, the GR501 was preceded by the GEC Z5671 which was Clacton's staple lantern from the mid-1960s to the late 1960s, and it was superseded by the ELECO GR535 in the early 1980s.

Many of you will also be familiar with the lantern's golden glow when switched on:



Sadly, I don't have a picture of a day-burning GR501, but this article in the East Anglian Daily Times helpfully contained the above photograph.

Imagine my jaw-dropping astonishment when I was visiting my friend in Luton after work yesterday, and saw this:


A day-burning ELECO Golden Ray, Luton-style!


In a stroke of genius, the old 35W SOX lamp has been removed, the control gear bypassed and a new LED array fitted!


What's particularly pleasing is that the LED array appears to have been deliberately designed to mimic the length of the redundant 35W SOX bulb, and when installed, the lantern looks no different than it did before, except for the colour of the light.


On the return journey to my friend's house, it was becoming clear that this was an ongoing LED roll-out, with many dozens of Luton's old GR501s being retrofitted with LEDs. And I have to say that it was a delight to see, especially at night. SON casual replacements, previously superior to the SOX-lit GR501s, were now very much the poor relation in the street.


It's a little shaky in the absence of a tripod, but here's one last night-photograph of a GR501-lit street in Luton, as you've never seen a GR501-lit street before! All the above photographs of the LED GR501s were taken yesterday (Friday 15th May 2015).

Essex County Council won't roll-out LED street lights due to the prohibitively high cost of purchasing LED lanterns. But I think their eyes will light up when they see how Luton Borough Council have solved the very same problem!

I'd much rather see this than lanterns replaced completely.

That's one way to save a fortune on PFIs and other ways of wasting taxpayers money, should be adopted all over.

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From streetlighting to radio, dance through the night whilst the streetlights are glowing outside.

Those lantern retrofits could be a nightmare later on if the old designs fail to keep the internal temperature within the thresholds that LEDs can work with, not to mention water seepage...

Here's the latest on the TfL LED upgrades on the A roads in my area:

The post-top Iridiums and ZX3s on the 1970s Fabrikats on the A1400 Woodford Avenue have now all been replaced with post-top Urbis Amperas. Stupidly, further down on this stretch Urbis Amperas light the carriageway going towards the A406 and Phosco P851s light the other carriageway!

The remainder of the MRL6s on the Newbury Park stretch of the A12 have now all been swapped out with the black LED lanterns with long canopies as was first used (Phosco P851s were used to light the previous stretch from Newbury Park tube station to Aldbotough Hatch). The long black lanterns have now also started attacking the WRTL SR200s on my nearest stretch of the carriageway between Newbury Park and Gants Hill. All the single bracket installations except for the Phosco P850 on the right have been swapped out - the double bracket installations for now still remain, but it won't be for much longer!

So nearly all stretches of dual carriageway through Redbridge are LED-only zones! At least there is a bit of variation in lantern types though - the long black LED lanterns,. the odd Phosco P850, Phosco P851s, Urbis Teceos and Urbis Amperas, but the instance on the A1400 Woodford Avenue with Amperas on one side of the road and P851s on the other is just ridiculous! I just can't help thinking, therefore, that the contractors have done a rather sloppy job.

The black LED lanterns that rojojnr has seen used in London are Orangetek AriaLED fittings. These are the latest lanterns being used in Brighton and Hove.

The LED retrofitting scheme on the A12 through Redbridge is now almost complete. The remainder of the ZX3s on the Redbridge to Gants Hill stretch, the five double-bracket sets of Iridums first from the roundabout on the Redbridge to Gants Hill and Gants Hill to Newbury Park stretches and some of the WRTL SR200s on my nearest stretch of the carriageway have all been swapped out with the long black LED lanterns. Nothing, however, seems to be being done with the high-mast lighting on Gants Hill Roundabout. I'm not even sure if an LED high-mast lantern exists yet (but I suppose if there was one it'd be a case of authorities having their cake and eating it, as LEDs are meant to be much more energy efficient, but high-mast lighting is the biggest consumer of energy out of all road lighting)! In general, however, it's only a small stretch of WRTL SR200s left now and then the A12 through Redbridge will be entirely LED!

Redbridge Council, meanwhile, now seems to be using the TRT Aspect as its casual replacement lantern. I've seen a ZX2 on The Drive be casually replaced with one on a new column and a ZX3 on Perth Road has been retrofitted with one. This looks like the advent of main road LED lighting in Redbridge!

Well folks, we've reached the milestone. 100% LED lighting (well, almost) on the A12 through Redbridge! The rest of the WRTL SR200s on my stretch of the carriageway have now all had their brackets shortened and lanterns retrofitted with Orangetek AriaLEDs. This must have happened late on Friday night as I went past them twice on Friday (including during the evening) and they were still there then, but noticed they were all gone yesterday. The only non-LED lanterns remaining are the SON high-masts on Gants Hill Roundabout, which is disappointing considering they are the least energy efficient out of all the lighting (but then again, as I mentioned before, is there such thing as an LED high-mast lantern yet?), three MRL6s hidden in trees which have been missed (which I only spotted through seeing the tell-tale pink glare through the branches at night) and three MAs just after the Redbridge roundabout which have strangely been missed despite being surrounded by LED lanterns. But apart from those, all other lanterns on the A12 through Redbridge are now LED.

Thanks for the updates Rojojnr. While on the topic of LED, those catenary lights in Southwark that you pointed out a while back (Clicky) have been replaced by LED catenary lanterns! Unfortunately I was unable to take any photographs, but they look rather smart.

LEDs don't seem to have really caught on in surrounding streets, with the lantern of choice being dished bowl ZX12s. There is also no evidence of any radio controlled switching at present, with photocells still very much being the standard.

These are the MAs I'm talking about. The two MAs in the foreground have now been retrofitted with AriaLEDs - only the double bracket installation with the MA60 and MA50 still remain, although this will probably be LEDed too very soon. Behind the camera you can see the post-top Urbis Teceos which replaced the MA60s on the roundabout and the SGS204s on the next stretch of the A12 up to Wanstead. Double-bracket Teceos have been used to replace the double-bracket SGS203/4s on the Wanstead to Leytonstone stretch.

The SGS204s on the adjacent old A12 seem to be safe from replacement, as this road is now owned by Redbridge Council rather than TfL (despite the SGS204s being installed as part of the construction of the new dual bypass in the late 1990s). The foreground column has been casually replaced with a TRT Aspect, Redbridge's most recent lantern, which proves it!