They use various models of plastic for spot replacements but oddly enough they still use the Eagle/siemens aluminum signals for new installations.

@Model25FanForever:
Is Eagle the model? or brand? (sorry but I don't know traffic-lights)

@Mike:
So these are made of aluminum? I guess that makes sense over steel or something since they'd be lighter...

Yep, cast aluminum just like cobraheads. Each color is a separate section that is bolted together with two plates and three carriage bolts. The plates are shaped on the idea of washers and the wires run through the middle to different sections. The doors are also cast aluminum and the visors are sheet metal aluminum that is curved. The plastic signals are either fiberglass or polycarbonate (seen both, though most modern ones are the latter) and their doors and visors are plastic too. With incandescent I'd never use plastic but with LEDs being virtually the only thing out there in new installations, I'd consider plastic. Plastic signals are bad for big dog house style set-ups though. They need to be metal (or at least the top section) or else they'll break. They make metal reinforcements to stick on the tops and bottoms of plastic sections but still, the cast aluminum is the way to go if the signals are going to be suspended from the top IMO.

Oh BTW Eagle is the brand. They sold their line to Siemens and Siemens sold it a few years ago to someone else. Mobotrex is their name (they changed it from Brown Traffic Products). Website here.

The aluminum Eagles here (newer ones from the past 10 years) have issues with the visors falling off. Must be a crappy mount.

They got rid of aluminium signals in York Region for the most part in 2003-2007 during the incandescent to LED changeout but some aluminium CGE flashers that got LED refits still remain.

Toronto still has a few aluminium CGE 12-8-8 signals left, they got converted to LED years ago. Mostly Scarborough though.

The most common signal here is probably the polycarbonate Fortran though.


Yeah the poly signals here in Ontario have aluminium plates to reinforce the top and middle section but I have seen a few breakages after high winds with the older top mount signals. They switched to a plumbizer mount (basically a rigid mount between the red and yellow sections) in the mid 2000s which seems to have faired better.

Here they mount the signals to a piece of pipe and install the pipe to the past arm. Very secure way to do it. And they have a safety chain just in case. See here.

Interesting info.
I never knew each section was a separate piece (I was through this intersection earlier this week, and since I was stopped at a Red, took a good look at one of the lights... yeah you can kinda tell Seems a very sensible way to make them.)

I think most of the signals here are aluminum (they look like metal). Most have been converted to LED, but I still see some incandescents around too.

I can't see plastic holding up some of the high winds or hail storms we get all that well.
Should be good & secure with the pipe setup You mention Mike.

Yeah the 8" heads and 12" heads are interchangeable too and since they're individual units, you could make a single signal a mile long if you wanted lol. I suppose you could use a bunch of incandescent signal sections together for stage lighting. Just remove the colored lenses. The lenses are typically plastic (older ones were glass though) for incandescent signals. Kopp Glass made glass lenses for signals.

Yeah, only the 1930s signals were made as a single cast section (Crouse Hinds Type T, GE Novalux, and Ornamental Eaglelux). The signals from the 1940s and newer are sectional. The 40s and early 50s signals had open ended sections that bolted together with two tie rods while modern signals have closed ended sections and use chase nipples to join them.

We have some signals mounted with that pipe mount (aka Astro-Brac) but it's only used for mast arms that have a second signal mounted on it since our mast arms are monly designed to hold one signal.

I believe Kopp Glass was the most popular company that made glass signal lenses but Corning and Holophane made them at one point too. Our signals have used plastic lenses since the 70s and have been mostly LED since the mid 2000s.

We got some astro brac intersections here. Cant explain why they decided to use them. Some have been replaced by plumbized signals.

Interesting info guys.. all this stuff I never knew.

On more modern signals, are the sections standardized/interchangeable between brands?


@streetlight98:
So technically if you so wanted, you could take one of those lights that has a larger red, and have the larger one be yellow or green?? LOL

Even with the colored lenses they'd work as stage lighting..Just use a DMX controller for each color or section.
I could just picture a big long traffic-light up above a stage!

Yep they could be arranged as 12-8-8, 8-12-8, 8-8-12, 12-12-8, 12-12-12, 8-8-8, 12-8-12, 8-8-8-12, 12-8-8-12, any combination you can think of (12 being a larger 12" lens housing and the 8 being the smaller 8" lens housing).

I'm not sure. The actual mechanical fasteners are probably the same (three carriage bolts through two washer-like metal plates) but since different signal are shaped differently the housings probably wouldn't line up perfectly.

@Mike: You wrote down 9 possible combination which you may have repeated somewhere

There are 8 possible combination (2^3). Have you learn anything about octal base or hexadecimal in your computer class yet?

None of them are repeated. All the ones I listed are unique. A couple are 4-section combinations. There are infinite combinations that could be made because in theory you could couple an infinite number of sections together. I wonder if there's a world record for traffic signal with the most linear sections.

A picture that makes me miss Colorado a bit, kinda. But yeah, looks like a WL contractors truck. I have caught them working on traffic lights multiple times, which is why I have the incandescent reflectors and refractors for my McCain light and the broken Durasig, plus some of my streetlights I got from their yard. Where was this? I can recognize the traffic signal setup but can't quite pinpoint the location.

I will go back to visit Colorado again though I have no idea if I will end up living there ever again. I got tired of it long ago.

@Mike: I re-read your comment and found that you did add another set of group

As for the 4 lights section, you have 16 possible combination (2^4) or 5 lights section; 32 possible combination (2^5)

@streetlight98:
Could make for some odd/interesting combinations

@Lil'Cinnamon:
Cool that you were able to score some lights ..I'd feel way to weird to go ask the 'truck guys' about lights
This one is at the entrance to that SuperTarget on Bowles.

Not sure what the record is but my personal record is six sections in Quebec. The max I've seen in Ontatio is 5, I believe the MTO limits our lights to have only 5 sections or less.

I've seen five sections in MA on post-top signals. For mast mount they use doghouses. In RI the most I've seen is four sections, since we use the bi-color arrows, though new intersections use the flashing yellow arrow signals. For 8" signals, the most I've seen is 3 sections. And for 12/8 combos in RI, the only combo used here that I'm aware of is our 12-12-8 R-Y-Y pedestrian signals (well, they're vehicle signals but used at crosswalks and also in front of fire stations). The 8" yellow section on the bottom flashes on and off as a "green" light. If someone presses the button to cross the road, the signal turns yellow and then red like a normal traffic signal and after the walk light expires, the signal reverts back to flashing yellow. Sometimes all three sections are 12" but usually the flashing section is 8".

Ahh, I've seen 4 section 8" signals here but they're kinda rare. The 5 section signals are either all 12" or 12/8 combos. I believe we have three main types of combos here, the 12-8-8, 12-8-8-12 and the 12-8-12 which is only used in Ottawa.

Most I've seen five sections, smallest is one (which looks really weird hanging up there on a wire..I should try to get a pic of that sometime )

For lights with different sizes, I've never seen any other than the red be the 12" ( 12-8-8 ).
All 12" if probably the most common here.