Airport Tunnel Lighting

Quite an old pic from 2013! Don't even know if these are even still here...

The river Bollin runs through a tunnel that goes under runway 05R / 23L at Manchester Ringway Airport.
The tunnel is lit by a number of 70w SON units along the wall. They are controlled by a single photocell at one end that is presumably driving a contactor.
Many feature failed and leaked lamps. They have some interesting control gear.

There are quite a lot of unlit units but I reckon it was designed that way as there are far too many units to light up this effectively closed off roadway.
Just lamp them all up and then leave them for years before any maintenance. When they all start failing, there are that many that it wont matter too much.

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Comment 1 to 10 of 10

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Danny

[11 Mar, 2019 at 05:32 PM]

Lush looks like one on two off sequence! Would like to lamp these up

FrontSideBus

[11 Mar, 2019 at 06:05 PM]

From memory the ones off were obviously EOL as they had quite blackened arc tubes or had completely leaked. It doesn't look it but they are quite high up on the wall lol.

FrontSideBus

[11 Mar, 2019 at 06:16 PM]

Just been on the wiki and you can find a pic of the tunnel with all of them lit here, click me.
As you can see in that pic on that page, there are far too many lamps for what they have to do so I reckon they just lamp them all up and then leave then for years until most of them are dead.

oliver

[11 Mar, 2019 at 07:07 PM]

They are installed lower than it looked on here.

FrontSideBus

[11 Mar, 2019 at 08:54 PM]

It is a *big* tunnnel lol. They are easy 10ft up tbh, well over head height. Here is a pic with people in it for scale.

FrontSideBus

[24 Aug, 2021 at 06:18 PM]

Well... was there again today doing a bit of plane spotting and I can report... only *TWO* of these now work. All the others are EOL with obviously shagged and leaked lamps. Looks like they are not maintaining these at all now. 16 at the other end have been converted to LED, probably as a trial but only half of those work as well but that maybe by design as they are off and on in sequence.

Andy

[25 Aug, 2021 at 11:13 AM]

A pity that these are not better maintained. Just one working lamp per 10 would be sufficient to see the path there at night.

FrontSideBus

[25 Aug, 2021 at 11:44 AM]

The second runway hasn't been used since the start of lockdown so probably not really a priority. The fire station on that side is looking a bit neglected too with weeds coming uo everywhere.

Slyspark

[25 Aug, 2021 at 12:56 PM]

Out of sight, out of mind would seem to be the case. Doubt anyone from the airport comes down here much, as technically outside the perimeter fence.

pat_96

[25 Aug, 2021 at 11:50 PM]

Shame about the LED conversion at the other end Sad

Comment 1 to 10 of 10

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