The North West in this case applies to anywhere north of the West Midlands (so Cheshire and north of there), south of the Scottish Borders, and west of the Peak District/Pennines/Yorkshire Dales.

Anyway, I'll start this off with the main talking point at the moment - the LED streetlighting increase in Lancashire. These are WRTL Stela's

At the moment I have only seen two installations - beside the WCML bridge over the river Lune at Lancaster, and behind the council offices at Preston. I also saw some installations from the pendolino between lancaster and preston, but I don't count these as I was going at some speed past them!

This is the rail bridge in Lancaster, the WRTL Stela's can be just seen going along the bridge in the background


Closer pics. Personally, I think they look ridiculous - like somebody's got a piece of roof slate and stuck it on a pole as a joke!







Lit up in Preston. The SON-lit area behind is a carpark lit by floodlights of a power between 100 to 250w per light.




That was the best close-up of the optic I could get. Sadly I just missed the bridge examples in Lancaster light up, as I had to get back to the station for a train and the lights turned on as I was 5 mins away but could still see them!

Anyway, that's the latest developments in the North West... feel free to discuss this or anything else relevant. (and maybe even if a development just crosses the border into Yorkshire or the east midlands!)

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Can this include Meerseeeyside or Liverrrpuuurl.

Southport still has the fancy flying saucer on Lord Street, and there's quite a few Albanies on Southport's Pier.

I remember when the pier has Gamma 6's on blue columns, most weren't working but about 7 out of 20 were buring red, has dislodged bowls, or they were dayburning. and this was about 10 years ago.

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

WRTL Stelas:

I am getting a new phone for Christmas so hopefully I will be able to get some decent photos of these to put on here. In typical Lancashire style these Stelas are spreading like a rash! At the moment Lancs don't seem too confident about them as they tend to just be using them on quiet cul-de-sacs and footpaths mostly. I noticed some outside the Civic Centre in Poulton on Sunday night lit up as well. Personally when teamed up with a black column and on a modern estate I think they look good! I can't see them fitting in on a 1930s suburban street though or on a row of terraced houses!  

However the light output from these Stelas is extremely poor. In the main in my area they have replaced 50w SON SRL8s and I have to say the SRL8s lit the road much better. These Stelas seem to be taking us back to an era of dim tungsten-lit streets (albeit with a great deal more energy-effiency). LED lighting seems like a good idea for car brake lights and traffic light signals etc but for streetlighting, for the moment at least, it's not up to scratch.

I can't understand why Lancs haven't used CFL more instead of just down the odd back alley or footpath here and there. It's much more efficient than SON and gives off a better light than SON or LED. I bet the lanterns are cheaper than the Stelas as well! The only thing I have against CFL is that I find a lot of the lanterns ugly especially the WRTL Iris and Urbis Altra!



Of course as long as you don't keep doing these awful Scouser impressions  

Although there is no way of knowing for sure... there is a rumour that this is a Metropolitan Vickers lantern of some kind.

But I still call it the Fancy Flying Saucer, or the Saucer King (I don't know why, but it looks like it has a crown on!)

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This is quite possible as Southport had a lot of Metro-Vick lanterns at one time and still has some SO50s on Stanton columns down one road. It's good that Sefton council haven't replaced that posh saucer, maybe they can appreciate how stylish it is and are preserving it. Let's hope so anyway  

What lamp does that fancy flying saucer have would it be SON or SOX.

I were tempted when i was there to go down a few side roads and see what lanterns they have but i didnt.

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

You should have! I haven't been to Southport for quite some time but they used to have a lot of SOX lighting in the side roads, Beta 5s, MI26s and the like but the really interesting thing was the columns, many of which were of the ornate cast-iron type or early concrete columns like Stanton swan-necks etc. Southport seems like the kind of place which could produce some gems lighting-wise if you look hard enough!

Well it's about time this thread was bumped!  

Blackpool have been going a bit mad with variety in the last few months in regards to lantern choices as the following new lanterns have all been installed recently as either new installations or casual replacements:
WRTL Vectra (nothing new there)
WRTL 2600 (ditto)
DW Windsor Stratum (ditto again)
WRTL Arc 80 (that's a first!)
Urbis Sapphire 1 (used before but only sparingly)
Philips Iridium SGS252 (ditto Sapphire)
Holophane QSM (a big surprise!)

Most surprising of all was I happened to be in the Foxhall area of town the other day... and I was amazed to find Urbis ZX2s fitted as casual replacememts for MRL6s on Tyldesley Road and Rigby Road! What's so amazing about that I hear you cry? Well, the ZX2 has not been previously used in Blackpool since 1995 and most of the few original examples from that era have been casually replaced with Vectras. In fact most of the ZX-series that were fitted in the resort have been heavily casually-replaced which leads me to believe they're not as reliable as the SRL8s and MRL6s from the same era which largely still remain unreplaced to this day (and any replacements they do have are mostly due to column defects rather than any problem with the actual lanterns).

I can't believe how much the Stela has spread! The first ones I saw were in Preston up just one side street in around May, then I saw a street in Lancaster lit-up by them. Then around June more and more side streets in Lancaster became fitted with them on a mixture of columns be them concrete or metal. An odd road has them on eight metre-high columns. Over the summer, as has been pointed-out they have begun to appear on the Fylde. When I returned back to Lancaster, at first I thought that all the sidestreet 2600s had been replaced, such was the amount of them! This isn't the case, there still are lots of 2600s, however could it only be a matter of time?! I never thought I'd see the day when the 2600 gets ousted in these parts  

For what it's worth I actually like them, both lit and unlit, I agree they do look better on those late 1990s black columns, but look alright on other columns (I even saw one mounted on a fibreglass column the other day!). What I'm not so keen on is how many older lanterns are being replaced, it reminds me of when Lancashires' Beta 79s were mass-replaced in the 90s (could it be that 2600s become just as rare, surely not, this is 2600 country afterall!!) They do seem to be most common in the Lancaster City Council area (only spotted in Lancaster and Morecambe though), I've noticed them in smaller numbers in other areas of Lancashire, however haven't seen many (if any) in the east of the county or in West Lancashire District.

As mentioned by Gramma 6, Vectras continue to be in favour in the Red Rose county with the new remotely controlled sensors being fitted to the lanterns on many main roads. Whilst I applaud Lancs CC for being innovative once again, It's a shame that some roads have now lost their MRL6s (though these remain on many roads), also there's no fun if all the lights come on at the same time!

Having been on a long drive through the east and south of the county at the weekend, I was really pleased to see so many good old SOX lanterns surviving    Lancashire does seem to be a county of two halves lighting-wise; the west of the county (especially the Fylde coast) is mostly SON with SOX lanterns being pretty rare to non existant, whilst the east of the county still has hundreds upon hundreds of SOXs (mostly GR150s, MA50s/60s or 9554s, as well as numerous side road SOX lanterns) along with plenty of SON. Particularly good SOX boroughs are Rossendale, Hyndburn, Pendle and Burnley (many SOXs are on S&L or Petitjean columns too   ) Also nice to see is that numerous early SON-ification scheme in town centres and at crossing still remain complete with various Turtle lanterns. Lancaster CC and West Lancashire District Council are exceptions in that they are mostly SON (or increasingly LED) on the side streets, but many of the main roads are still SOX-lit, so are between the two 'halves'.

The Lancashire unitary authorities are complete contrasts when it comes to SOX vs SON as well. Blackburn-with-Darwen has very large numbers of SOX on both its main roads and side streets (SON is common also), whilst Blackpool Borough has all but a handfull (three at the last count, four/five if you include Squires Gate Link Road) with the rest mostly being SON.

Onto your observations about Blackpool's lighting Gramma. I to have noticed the seemingly eclectic mix of lantern (and indeed column) choice lately. I've noticed the ZX2s you mention, I've also spotted one on Faraday Way, one on East Park Drive and one on Clifton Road.

I've seen two Holophanes, one pictured below:

http://paulharris.fotopic.net/p63543533.html

What a strange bracket, usually lanterns on these columns would be installed post top ala the other Holophane, or with a hockeystick bracket! I've also seen on Dickson Road one such hexagonal Stainton fitted with a Stainton Bones bracket and Vectra!

I've seen an Iridium fitted onto a cast-iron swan-neck column, a white ZX2 on a hockeystick and this weired bracket thingy:

http://paulharris.fotopic.net/p63543528.html

My theory, the PFI that began in January. Most of these strange occurances happened prior to this, so could it be that the council were just using-up old stock in their depot not wanting to splash out on new lanterns and columns, with the PFI company continuing this practice as a kind-of stopgap until they are ready for purchasing stock? Or perhaps they are trailing different lanterns and columns? I don't think the last one's very likely at all mind.

More information on the PFI:

http://www.blackpool.gov.uk/Services/S-Z/StreetLighting/

http://www.clp.uk.com/Blackpool/Template.aspx?function=Home&menuIndex=0

I'm following the progress as much as I can, and I have noticed a number of columns are now numbered-up as mentioned on the council website. A couple of examples:

http://paulharris.fotopic.net/p63543530.html

http://paulharris.fotopic.net/p63543532.html

The stickers have the council and CLP logos across the top, with installed by E.ON underneath, the column number, the road name, the ward, a message 'Report a street lighting fault', a faultline number and then a web address. The numbering seems to be happening on a ward-by ward basis with the northern and southern wards coming first. Exciting times ahead!

Are these black, like York's, or grey like in Derby?


what comes around, I suppose! over here, ZXU1's are likely to be coming into use, after roughly 5-10 years since the ZX1 had stopped being installed... but that's due to the light source being used. There may be some logical explanation for blackpool, like light source or part night dimming control gear inside the ZX2's or something...



I tell you what, it's wierd the very first time you're in a street that is radio-switched when the lights come on!



Methinks that somebody has taken a page from York's book! The QSS is one of those lanterns that doesn't really look right on a bracket...

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