These pics are from a small village a few miles away named White Horse Common. It doesn't look as though much has been changed on the overhead distribution for many years.

There are still street lights running from a fifth wire on the distribution poles, and quite a mixture of light styles as well. Here's one metal pole, with an extension on top. The upper insulator is where the neutral has been tapped, the lower one is the 5th lighting wire:


Another peculiarity in this place is that there is a span of cabling with horizontal orientation instead of the usual vertical arrangement which is the norm for 240/415V lines. As the road climbs on this curve and the lines switch sides, presumably this was done to obtain sufficient clearance:


This is the final street light, an older bracket type, and also the transition back to normal vertical orientation. The fifth wire ends at the this pole and is a little hard to spot, but it is just about visible running in from the left above the four normal conductors. Look very carefully between the second and third horizontal conductors and you can just about see it against the clouds:


(With apologies for the poor quality again. English winter is on the way! )

{ Edited to insert better images }

[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 10-21-2004).]

Yes I can see the 5th wire in the 3rd pic, Paul.
In the second pic, are there 2 sets of conductors?, it looks like there is another set of wires crossing that Service Line that goes into the building on the left.
Personally, from a Line Mechanic's stand-point, Vertical orientation makes a lot of sense Paul, especially where access to the conductors from an EWP (Bucket Truck) is concerned.
I wish that we'd used it here, as with all the 400/230 lines on poles being PVC insulated (Neutral excluded), having the wires touch during storms and gale force winds, isn't usually a problem.

I can't remember what services cross the road at this point, but there are overhead telephone lines here run on the poles as well, and also many of these buildings are typical British "semi-detached" or "terraced," in other words there is more than one separate residence to each physical building.

The lines running off to the left in the first photo twist into horizontal configuration a pole or so later, and are supported by the pole you can see poking above the treetops in the second pic.

The road curves round uphill to the right, and the lines cross over the roadway to that pole you can see way in the distance of the second picture.

That's actually the same pole in close-up on the third image, where the lines revert back to normal vertical orientation and continue running a short distance on the other side of the road.

Sorry -- These photos really are bad. I'll see if I can replace them with better ones if I'm out that way again on a brighter day.

[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 10-17-2004).]

I went through the village again this afternoon, and as it was a little brighter today I've replaced the images with ones which are slightly better.

Here's another which gives a better view of how the elevated horizontal run has been used to cross the road:


And another bracket light, this time on a pole with "normal" vertical orientation of the lines. This is actually the next pole to the right of the one above:


This pole also holds the old timeswitch which feeds power to the fifth wire:

Ahh yes Paul,
The Westinghouse Streetlighting timer.
We have a heap of these units in use over here.
They're a nightmare to open after being exposed to a couple of decades of rain, hail and baking sunlight.
Mind you,I've yet to see one fail outright, long term power failures do tend to muck up the settings on them though, being mechanical.

Paul,


Do those street lights use low pressure sodium lamps? From pics I have seen of British fixtures they look like LPS.

LPS is extremely rare here. It has never caught on the way it has on your side of the pond, namely because it has a color rendering index of 0! However, they are far and away the most efficient HID lamps.

High pressure sodium is extremely common for street lamps here, but their color rendering is still a lousy 22.

Mercury vapor, the worst of the HID family, in terms of light output and efficiency, is still in widespread use too.

Yes, those are low pressure sodium, still much used here, though gradually being replaced with hps. The astronomers like lps too, easy to filter out. They also give the classic orange sky at night here!

Gideon.

Hi Gideon, and welcome to the forum.

Peter,

Sorry, looks like I missed your question before.

Out here in the sticks, on a clear night we can almost navigate by the different strength of orange glows coming from different directions from nearby towns.

No worries Paul. I had forgotten about the thread for a while, but I just noticed it had jumped up to the top again.

BTW, I like your streetlights.

We are slowly moving into Metal-Halide here, considering you can get Retro-fit MH lamps that work on LPS or HPS control gear.
Not sure what the standard power per fitting is in the UK, but a 70 Watt LPS is common here, we can retrofit up to a 125W M-H on the same control gear, with an upgrade in MCB protection in the base of the Lighting Standard, from 10A to 16A.

Classic orange glows here in ireland too.

Although, newer lighting installations are using more modern technology..

There were still the odd few remote spots which had old white fittings here until quite recently.

Apparently the disposal of the mercury bulbs was a nightmare!

That one in the first picture is quite old now. You won't find anything so ornate in the new fittings.