The amount of fun one could have with some bright, focused light source directed onto them cells at night....

My bike light would do the trick!
On a related note, I found where the photocell controller is for the low-level Thorn Orus lights are over the bridge in York - a feeder pillar by the road. All I have to do is stop there and dump my rucksack on the top of the pillar and the lights should come on!

It would be! A 1990s Beta 5's two part cell fell out of the socket, down the side of the lantern, and it just kept turning on and off for a few days, till it eventually stopped working. But a new two-part cell is in use now.

As most of us will know that Norfolk has an ongoing PFI scheme replacing its streetlighting. However the city of Norwich is set to become an unitary breaking away from the rest of Norfolk in April 2011.

So I wonder if the Norfolk PFI will cease in Norwich when this change takes effect or the PFI will simply include the City of Norwich with Norfolk.

Maybe the PFI is currently focused primarily on Norwich by steamrolling on with the replacements to get things done over with before the city becomes an unitary next year?

This could be why last summer I saw a lot of streets being relit in Norwich which other places in Norfolk such as Great Yarmouth had mostly casual replacements.

The way that a PFI works would mean that terminating part of the contract would be difficult and expensive, so assuming Norwich has been included in the Norfolk PFI (and not excluded because of possible unitary status) then the PFI would continue in this area. It's worth noting that some of Norwich's street lighting is owned and maintained by the city council rather than the county council, and I don't think this will be included in the PFI anyway.

I was delighted today to find the old A12 at Copdock available on google streetview! Near the end of the road (near where it has been blocked off) I found an example of a flat glass GR70 in a culdesac. This is an example of a common, modern Suffolk installation used before the Sapphire invasion. The interesting thing is, Suffolk seem to install such lanterns at extremely low mounting heights. Do you think this means that the lamp would be 50 instead of 70 watts?

Could easily be 50w, and is more likely to be 50w. They're not technically flat "glass" though, being flat "plastic"

I'd have never known that was an Eleco!

Well, the GR70 was originally designed by Davis, and the version linked to was an updated version made under the Chalmit brand name, later WRTL.

A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to purchase a copy of a DVD called Colchester and Chelmsford in the Sixties. It was produced in 2009 by the East Anglian Film Archive. Amongst a great many other things, the DVD is a valuable insight into some of the street lighting that existed in Colchester in the 1960s, and also shows how some of the installations that still survive in part to this day originally looked like.

A garrison town like Colchester is frequently brought to a standstill (in a good way!) to show our support for our town's soldiers. This image from one such march was taken in the High Street:



(same view today) I have no idea whether the open lanterns were using GLS or mercury. Many of the town's re-used tram traction poles still exist to this day, although these ones in the middle of the street do not.



Another view of the High Street (the view today). In the background, you can see an old 5ft fluorescent on a long-outreach Stewart and Lloyd's column.

Just around the corner is the Bus Station, which held onto its 5ft fluorescents well into the 1980s:



Another image of the bus station:



This isn't quite the equivalent view, as the Google Car didn't travel into the Bus Station, but it did capture the same exit road from the other end.

Of note here is that many of the original concrete columns still exist, but their concrete hockey stick brackets and fluorescent lanterns have gone.

Just outside of town is Layer Road, home until recently of Colchester United. I do not recall these open sodium lanterns existing in Colchester:



The same view today, but with a more modern low-pressure sodium lantern.

Still in Layer Road, but just up the road from the previous view:



These open sodium lanterns with the curved ends I certainly do remember, although none have survived to this day. When coupled with an old bracket like this one photographed by Phosco152, the up-turned bracket end almost created a symmetry with the curved ends of the sodium lantern. The view today.

Now onto Colchester's first bypass which opened in the 1930s. The road had had a new lighting scheme by the time this piece of film was taken:



Alpha Ones everywhere! Comparing this image to the view today, the 90w SOX Alpha Ones have long gone, and been replaced by 250w SGS203s at 12 metres. This is despite the fact that this bypass was by-passed by another bypass in 1974, so the A12 no longer uses the road!

Some of these Alpha Ones still exist along this road but moved onto sleeved brackets, as previously mentioned on page five of this topic. But the few that are left are currently being decimated by a new development.

Another view of the original bypass from the East Anglian Film Archive DVD:



They certainly liked their Alpha Ones, which probably explains why so many have survived in the town to this day. The view today.

Lastly, a look a Colchester Garrison:



Needless to add, I have never seen these in my life, and I have no idea what they are!