Local Philips MI 26s (XGS 103s)

The MI 26 was, as far as I am aware, launched in the early 1990s as a replacement for the aluminium-canopied MI 50. It appeared here at about the same time; usually as a replacement lantern for something else. Its popularity was short-lived however, as the Beta 5 soon regained the top seat as the county's choice of side-road lantern. Examples were still fitted in some new housing estates in the mid 1990s but then there was another gap of a few years before it was used again - it was about the year 2000 when new examples appeared again; but this time it had a new name and was fitted with an electronic one-piece ballast as standard. It was then only used on new columns and not retro-fitted to existing ones. These were almost always fitted with Royce Thompson Oasis 2000 cells.

This MI 26 has been retrofitted to a cast iron column's swan neck. The light green colour of the metalwork will be quite old - it was the colour which was used prior to the modern 'Derbyshire Green' seen in the photographs of the steel columns below. By the early 1990s, installations in this colour were becoming increasingly difficult to find - cast irons seemed to be the last types to be painted. I can vaguely remember examples - however, these have now all been repainted or completely replaced.

This MI 26 is fitted on a short-outreach swan neck which is mounted to a Stewart and Lloyd steel column. This may have been a mercury installation at one time. Sadly, this column was replaced in 2005 when the road was relit with Industria Arcs.

This MI 26 is fitted to a sleeved Stanton 7. In November 1973, an ESLA with rimpled mirrors and an anti-glare shield was fitted to the original Stanton curved bracket. How do I know this? Well, the column is featured on the picturethepast.org.uk website - the 'then' pictures can be seen by holding your mouse cursor over the photographs:

This XGS 103 is fitted with a tall-cone Oasis 2000; meaning that it was one of the first of the electronic ballast versions to be fitted.

This is an identical setup as above - except that the lantern is dayburning! Oddly, the cell had reset the next day - perhaps it was the hot weather which temporarily caused it to stop working. The tarmac strip leading from the column was for a cable run leading to a sign - the post was removed about a week or so after it had been installed and the plate fixed to the lighting column instead!

The bowl from this XGS disappeared rather suddenly but the lantern continued to run without it (even though the outer-bulb of the lamp went very black!) - I would have thought that the electronic ballast may have been damaged by the reduced IP rating, but not apparently so.

The post-top version of the XGS 103 is not widely used here - it only appears on particularly narrow footpaths. Notice that this version uses a newer Oasis - this is because it was installed in 2002.

This example is fitted to a different style of raise-and-lower column and an anti-glare shield is fitted - that must make opening the bowl quite difficult!

© 2002-2008 Mike Barford