This pic was from the 1940 opening of the original Tacoma Narrows bridge before her fateful collapse that November. What I would like to know is, does anyone have an idea what kind of lights were used on that bridge such as make/model and were they incandescent or LPS?
Hi NiMo, Joe Maurath Jr had emailed me this evening and as a side note he mentioned to me that these lights above are GE LPS lights. He has an ad from 1940 featuring these LPS lights. Here's his message:
"The lights upon it are GE LPS fixtures very likely equipped with 180 watt, 10,000 lumen lamps (NA-9 ones, like the one that's inside my small display cabinet if you recall it). That pretty much was the only LPS lamp wattage used in the early days. There was a 140 or 160W counterpart but those were very uncommon. Off-hand I do not know what the fixture was cataloged as...a M-something or another I think. I have a GE ad from 1940 that shows that same bridge advertising their LPS luminaires. It's all too bad it and those new lights fell into the drink!"
A few months back, rlshieljr showed me some pictures from Huntington Digital Library of them being used throughout Southern California Edison's service territory in the mid 30's
Hmm, I just found another reason to get scuba certified. I periodically visit someone who lives right by the Tacoma Narrows bridge...maybe a little underwater exploring and I can find and recover one of these? Covered with barnacles and completely unusable, but...
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"The lights upon it are GE LPS fixtures very likely equipped with 180 watt, 10,000 lumen lamps (NA-9 ones, like the one that's inside my small display cabinet if you recall it). That pretty much was the only LPS lamp wattage used in the early days. There was a 140 or 160W counterpart but those were very uncommon. Off-hand I do not know what the fixture was cataloged as...a M-something or another I think. I have a GE ad from 1940 that shows that same bridge advertising their LPS luminaires. It's all too bad it and those new lights fell into the drink!"
Hope this helps!
A few months back, rlshieljr showed me some pictures from Huntington Digital Library of them being used throughout Southern California Edison's service territory in the mid 30's