Bjarney mentioned the Series street-lighting system way back in this thread.
I've been reading an old "Line-mans Bible" printed in 1961, it goes into quite a bit of detail on these systems, I'll see if I can scan some pages and throw them in the Electrical Nostalgia area.
That book has really made for some interesting reading.
BTW, we did use vertical reticulation here at one time for LV distribution, I never knew that.
