I only know of a grey one in the entire GTA. It's still mercury and I think it was installed in 1965-1966.

Since it's gray it would have been one of the first gray M-250Rs made. I don't know if they started making them gray in 1966 or the end of 1965 but in 1966 they were gray (since Bryan's M-250R where my 175W GE ballast came from is from 1966) and in at least most of 1965 they were silver with the thumb latch. So there was a slight overlap where the silver M-250Rs had the thumblatch but the gray ones always had the thumblatch sticking out.

I never used to think there were really any of these left but there are a few scattered here-and-there. All the ones I've seen have been silver. I personally like the silver ones better since the gray ones sort of look like a modern M-250R2 with a quick glance or from far away. The silver ones look more vintage. I perfer the ones without the thumblatch piece jutting out too but I heard the ones without it are much harder to open.

These are common in Versailles Borough, PA. They're all 175 watt mercury vapor.

ahh here most of the 175w mercs are gone now so i don't really know what was used a lot in 175W. I'd assume mostly the same lights were used for 100 and 175W MV. All of them here though from the early-to-mid 60s up until the late 80s used 240V ballasts with 120V photocell receptacles. Before (for the most part) and after that time 120V lights were used.

It seems 100W MV and 50-70W HPS is more common than 175W MV and 100W HPS. The 100W mercs and 50W HPS in the NECo area replaced incandescents and the 70W HPS in BVE (and some of the 50W HPS in NECo) replaced 100W mercs, which had replaced incandescents. Many areas in the Narragansett Electric Co area went right from incandescent to 50W HPS in the early 90s. From what it seems, BVE got rid of most of their incandescents early on whereas NECo only put in low wattage mercs for larger cities and for new installations. When they replaced the incandescents here in the 90s they replaced the arms too. You can always tell where an incandescent light used to be because that was the only time they ever used steel mast arms. Any other time they've used aluminum. The arm these used was GE i think and they looked like this.

100 watt mercury vapor street lights are extremely rare in my area. There used to be 100 watt mercury vapor street lights along Rich Hill Rd in Indiana Township, PA, but most of them were replaced with 70 watt high pressure sodium street lights several years ago. There are a few 100 watt mercury vapor missouts left though.

@Mike, nice didn't know that. Anyway there's also a 400w merc M-400 (the last in the city) at the same subway station too. That station also has some old Holophane lights over the canopy too. Those are 175w mercs.

Yeah i was surprised to hear that too though it makes sense since the steel arms are mostly concentrated in certain areas and they only hold 50W HPS lights (113s or M-250R2s). I think the aluminum cantilever arms also replaced incandescents too and some of them probably originally held HPS lights.

nice that you know of at least a couple mercs but too bad there aren't any more. are those 175W MV B2227/R37s still around?