I really hope it doesn't have 34 watt lamps if it's still truly preheat and not converted to rapid start!

Cool that it's still up. Is it an F40T12? Interesting that it's only held up at one point. Usually 4ft fixtures have two stems/chains. With older the fixtures though, the ballast was often centered in the fixture as opposed to mounted on one side so I guess they could get away with one chain.

I honestly don't care too much for the decorative fluorescents. I prefer other styles of fixtures better. Some decorative fluorescents i like but some like the ones above look a little too Gothic for me. Like the fluorescent fixture from hell lol. Glad to see it's still up and working although it's missing some parts. Did you see what it had for lamps?

BTW, speaking of preheaters, how is your shoplite doing? I remember when I thought that one had a bad ballast and turns out the one that was mounted next to it ended up having a ballast EOL (the long-john one I had).

Yeah still preheat T12! You can see the starters in the pic too. Yeah most 4ft pendant fluorescents I've seen have two stems/chains supporting it. I guess like you said with older fixtures that have a more even weight distribution only one chain might be needed. I wonder if the chain was part of a older incandescent fixture though. The station was built in the 1910s so the fluorescent definitely replaced something.

Yeah, I guess the fixture is a bit too dark for my tastes too, I agree with how Gothic it looks too lol. I guess when it was new it probably had a silver finish and glass which would have made it look less Gothic. Lamps were 40w GE /CWX or SP41s I think. At least they didn't use 34w lamps lol.

As for the shoplite, I have it stored away at the moment although I might consider mounting it. The ballast in it is fine but I did fuse just to be safe.

Ah I see. Ah they even have 40W lamps! Bravo! Hmm there's a slight possibility that the fixture is just mounted right onto the old incandescent pendant in place of the globe. I know they made "adapters" for smaller fluorescents so possibly this is one of them, where you'd just snip off the incandescent socket and wire up the fixture and secure the fluorescent fixture to the incandescent using the three screws that are supposed to hold in the globe. It's a lot of extra weight but I guess it worked...

Or use an E27-outlet screw in adapter.

Maybe lol, that could be why they kept this light in use after all these years after the ones in the basement were replaced with wraparounds. Wonder if they made 4' fluorescent fixtures that mounted in place of the globe or did they hack the light in lol. I believe the proper retrofit fluorescent fixtures had either a screw in "plug" or a NEMA 1-15 plug which was used with a medium to NEMA 1-15 adapter.

This fixture would have been quite heavy though, especially with that tulamp preheat ballast and glass side panels. I wonder how long they're gonna keep this old gal running. The entire station is slated for major renovations right now. Personally I think 2x40w fluorescent isn't bright enough for that area, a 150w PSMH would be a better choice as the ceiling is quite high.

It looks a little dim to me too. Keep an eye out and maybe you can score it if it ever is removed.

Could have used a medium base socket screw-in (E27 is european though; E26 is north american). Yeah it's pretty dim, I was thinking maybe it was just the picture. I actually wonder if this fixture originally had a mogul base lamp. I could picture a 300W incandescent in this fixture, with one of those long cylindrical globes. Also, is it just me or is the fixture not centered over the hallway? Looks like it's mounted off to the side.

Yeah I was thinking a medium base adapter or something custom like removing the socket or something lol. Yeah this hall definitely looks like a 300w or even a 500w incandescent would be needed to light it up properly.

I suspect since the station is under renovations, they might remove the fluorescent and replace it with something closer to what was originally there. Probably one of those long cylindrical globes you mentioned. I guess instead of incandescent, they'll use HID instead. I believe the fixture is centred over the hallway but I'll have to double check and also try to snap a pic of some nifty louvered troffers that were also there.

If it was 300W or up there's a good chance the socket was mogul. 200 and 300W lamps come in both mogul and medium (though 200W is uncommon in mogul base) but 500W is mogul-only. I wonder if they'd use LED? New HID on/in buildings is very rare here now. Almost everything is LED or fluorescent. I haven't been in my city hall in a while, but I remember a pretty cool looking building with incandescent globe lights. They probably have CFLs or LEDs now.

Ahh, I could easily see them using 300-500w here since the ceiling is around 15' tall so I guess it might have been mogul based originally. Yeah it seems HID is getting used less and less now. Most new installs are LED now and a mix of fluorescent/LED for indoors.

Would be really cool if you could score this light! Then you'd know for sure too! My guess is that they will take it down in one shot so the fixture(s) would still be one piece.

Update: this got replaced with a 320W PSMH Cooper highbay. Probably temporary until the renovations are fully completed.

Hmm. Not LED but still really sad. Must be a lot more light now though lol.

Yeah, it's a lot brighter but yeah kinda a bummer to see a preheater go. It would have been nice if they kept the original fixture and retrofitted that to PSMH or even HPS which normally I'm not a fan of indoors.

Sucks that it got replaced. At least they didn't put it to shame with an LED light that lasts a few months, unlike what I have seen once (except that it was a MV explosion proof). Also, how would you retrofit a half-pipe with PSMH or HPS?

I was more of referring to the incandescent fixture that the preheater replaced back in the 40s. Would have been cool to see it refitted to HID.

I'm all for keeping the preheater, but it's a tad dim for this hallway and all of the original glass was missing too. Would have been nice to see it restored and relocated to somewhere with a lower ceiling.