Lighting-Gallery.net
General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Burrito on October 08, 2022, 09:16:48 PM
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I recently found some vintage photos of Interstate 15 back around 1971-1979! Mainly mercury (or HPS, idk) M400A's and new, shiny davit poles
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The photo was taken on W 100 N/N Temple , Salt Lake City, Utah . I'm guessing it's from around the early 70's from the era of cars in the photo . The area looks completely different now with the exception of the old "Salt Lke Hardware Co." bldg.
https://goo.gl/maps/KuCipgaDiBiPxMcV9
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Yep! How did you know?
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I just googled the Salt Lake Hardware Company , then looked at the building from different map angles until I found the one that matched the closest .
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Oh, I see! Good to know!
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Before all the construction along I-15 in Davis County, specifically Farmington area starting in the 1990s, the center divider between east bound and west bound going from about the area of Farmington Jr. High, all the way north to the north end of Lagoon, had those same single pole dual arm fixtures, which were Mercury Vapor. I believe they were likely in place from sometime in the 1970s up until they removed them when they began the widening project. I only got to see them all on once as I remember when I was very little. And then UDOT I believe went and removed most of the bulbs and deactivated most of the poles. Only a handful of fixtures were left serviceable and operating. It was really a shame, as I remember how neat that highway looked all lit up like that in the early 1980s as a young boy. They kept many of the fixtures throughout Davis County as mercury vapor and then slowly converted them over to HPS as the MV burned out or had dayburners that needed photocells replaced. The neighborhood I lived in in Farmington had some neat looking 10 ft tall english style MV fixtures with button style photocells in the poles. I remember dismantling one photocell when my lighting curiosity began to spike around the age of 12. The pole was a remote located pole in the neighborhood and had not worked for some time, either dead underground power, or a bad ballast I suspected.. but I got up the courage to unscrew the phillips screws that held in that button photocell and ripped it right out of the pole and ran for my life. haha. they eventually repaired the pole not too long before we moved out of the neighborhood. I was also fascinated by the 12 MV tennis court lamps (color corrected) we had in the neighborhood. They were shoebox fixtures mounted on 6ft arms on 15-20 foot poles. I enjoyed cycling them on and off and waiting to see which bulbs would relamp first out of the 6 in the upper court and 6 on the lower court.
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Fun story! yeah those davit mast arms are pretty rad looking
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Neat pictures, those setups must have looked pretty modern in the 1970s. Would have been amazing to see if they were using MV in them. The signal masts look pretty modern too, and it looks like they're already using all 12" heads. Over here there's still a lot of older installs with 12-8-8 heads.
Those vintage highway signs looked pretty cool too, almost look like they might be button copy which is a older style of sign construction that hasn't been used in the past 20+ years. Instead of reflective vinyl, painted metal text with reflective buttons was riveted to the sign board.
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They where Button copy for a time when the sign gantries weren't those newer tubular ones that UDOT likes to use.
Yes, these would have been most likely mercury or HPS.
Also, I recently found this NOS Mercury M400 fixture! https://www.flickr.com/photos/88219189@N04/12256900356/in/album-72157640395343805/
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I just noticed that the sign gantry is of a older design instead of the monotube ones used by UDOT. That NOS M-400 split door is owned by a LG member, Streetlight98. I believe he got it off eBay. Around 2011 or so there was a seller on eBay with around 50 of them all NOS I believe. I kind of wish I got one too.
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Yeah! Also, the newer tubular sign gantries we use are made by a company called "Universal Industrial Sales" https://www.uisutah.com/signstructures
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Interesting. MTO usually has them made by Valmont Structures. Not sure about the older aluminum tapered leg (https://www.thekingshighway.ca/PHOTOS-7/hwy401-1465_xlg.jpg) gantries used by the MTO from the mid 60s to the mid 90s though. Those also had provisions for illumination, both HO fluorescent and HID (MV/HPS).
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That's a pretty interesting sign gantry there! Anyways, i guess here is some more M400A scenes
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They were absolutely MV and many remained MV well into the 90s until they were converted to HPS. They had to be very strong as well because of extremely crazy high winds along the wasatch front. Especially the canyon winds like in that photo with the yellow 1960s mustang, at the entrance to Weber canyon/I-84 & Highway 89.
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Hmm, That's pretty interesting! I didn't know that over here went HPS in the 1990's!
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The yellow Mustang is a 1967 convertible .
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They started converting the existing MV to HPS in the 90s. New installations in the 80s and 90s were mostly HPS.
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The series TJ Hooker is a good one. It features old lighting stuff in 1980s Los Angeles. Apparently, LA experimented with LPS at one point in time from what I saw in a episode (don’t remember which).
:wndr:
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Never heard of that TV show
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*see attached file*
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Google IT, What?
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The guy from Star Trek is in it.
See Here (https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0083486/)
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Oh, Ok!
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A ton of old streetlights , signs and cares can also be seen in the TV show "Adam 12" THese also a bunch of LPS visible in several different episodes of the TV show "CHiPs"
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That's pretty cool! But i don't like to watch TV shows
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The series TJ Hooker is a good one. It features old lighting stuff in 1980s Los Angeles. Apparently, LA experimented with LPS at one point in time from what I saw in a episode (don’t remember which).
:wndr:
That is correct. LA and several other communities in California did indeed try LPS for awhile. They even had a display about it at one of their science museums as well as at an space observatory museum- The LPS were highly praised because of the low light pollution they emitted, which made looking at the stars easier. When I was a boy my family visited that museum during a vacation trip to LA and Disneyland. I remember all the LPS lamps and was very amazed by them.
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I just found this today. It's at the end of a grassy field, next to a highway on ramp. Anyone know why they do this?
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Fixture may have blown off, or they are repairing it or waiting for a new one, or decided to just remove it and leave the pole standing for now.
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Boston in the late 60's. 1G M400 visible.
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Wow, The paint already faded on it
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Nice with the M-400s and the vintage "pole top" signals.
I've attached some that were taken in the Toronto area.
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Found a few of these double mast arm fixtures still left on that street! although they are now the purple LED's
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Boston was OV-25 land, but there's still a good amount of them left. 70's photo.