Off Bennett Street, Long Eaton, Erewash, Derbyshire With thanks to Leo Conway for discovering these Survivors. Located on a short footpath between Bennett Street and the expansive Toton Rail Cargo depot and sidings are two abandoned wooden poles, with both supporting the remains of a GEC Z8260 lantern, for two 2 ft (600 mm) 40 Watt MCF/U (linear fluorescent) lamps, along with the associated overhead wiring that would have supplied these. Presumably, this lighting was provided by British Rail (or even their predecessor, the London Midland and Scottish Railway in this area, if the Z8260s were replacements for older lanterns) to allow workers from the depot a convenient walking route to and from the housing estate at night. This system fell into dereliction eventually, and was replaced by a series of 10 m base-hinged Abacus columns installed along the footpath instead - a rather overkill move, considering that the footpath has never had to cater for extensive (if any) vehicular traffic. These columns too are now abandoned, with all but one of the lanterns having been removed after 2023.
Facing Bennett Street from the depot access, the two wooden poles are seen.
Nothing but the aluminium canopies of the Z8260s remain extant.
Little remains of the overhead wiring either, although an apparent earlier repair using a length of three-core flexible cable between the overheads and a two-way conduit box is still to be seen; the other 'leg' of this box connecting to the lantern bracket using a steel-wire armoured cable.
This view demonstrates the rather barren lantern interior.
The second wooden pole stands alongside a newer 10 m column.
The outreach part of this bracket has spun around on its back plate, causing the canopy to become upside-down. Owing to the angled tilt incorporated into the brackets (to cast more forward light from the lantern), the canopy now faces downwards rather dramatically.
Again, disconnected wisps of the overhead wiring still remain attached to the pole.
The usual plate warning users not to alter the head loading of the column without first consulting the manufacturer's instructions is riveted to the rear section of the hinged column.
The following column is the only one that still retains a lantern.
That widely-used and very well-known lantern, a General Electric Luna Mini, is fitted to the bracket.
The curved glass bowl is smashed, although the tubular high pressure sodium (SON-T) lamp is intact, if not a little blackened.
This final view, looking back along the footpath route, shows another headless column. Just visible by the bushes immediately opposite the column is a wooden stump that may be all that is left of another pole.
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