Occasionally I'd see an old traffic light at a swap meet and always thought it would be cool to have one in the garage. Well, I finally got my first one a couple weeks ago. It's been fun learning a little about it. These came from the city of Cedar Rapids. I got them from an electrician who works on them. When the city replaces a light, they don't want the old ones back. I'm keeping one and gave the other to a friend. These are an Intelight ESB model made from 2003-2015. ESB stands for "Electronically Steerable Beam". There is an LED array for each light. The light passes through a diffuser. Depending on which LEDs are illuminated on the array, the light can be "steered" in different directions. This can be done remotely so technicians don't have to physically adjust the light while high up on a pole.

As you can imagine, these are much bigger up close then they normally look while driving. Each lens is 12" in diameter.




I removed the shades and the backplate to give them a good cleaning and coat of SEM Landau black. I used Mequiars PlastX polish on the clear plastic doors which cleaned them up pretty nicely. I ordered a controller and hooked it up last night. The controller has 38 pre-programed light functions you can choose from. You are also able to customize the amount of time each light is on. The next thing on the list is to clean up the aluminum mounting bracket assembly so I can get it mounted on the wall. Each bracket is held on with 3 stainless bolts. Being out in the weather for years and no use of anti seize, you can imagine what happened during removal. 4 of the 6 bolts snapped off. I couldn't use any heat due to the traffic light body being plastic. Hopefully some heat and luck will get the remainder of the bolts out. Due to limited space I'm going to mount it horizontally.


The other day I picked this up. It's an Eagle Durasig Pedestrian light. I haven't found out much about this one yet but I'm sure they normally come with 2 of these attached to each other. One for "walk" and one for "dont walk". This one came with extra lenses so I'm on the lookout for another so I can get both lights working as a pair. This one is bigger in person too. The lenses are 12" and the body is 14x14. This is an older one since it uses an incandescent bulb instead of LEDs.

I always wanted one too and got one a few years ago but it's a plain yellow metal GE one. The last owner put a stand on it so it sits on the floor without toppling over. I added a sequencer to it that you can get on ebay for around $20. The lenses on mine are more the normal 6-8" size.

I have one with the sequencer in it and a bunch of other stuff that will be going on the block soon. haven't had the time to take pic's and post all of it

I'm dating myself, but this guy always kept one in the living room...

He'd walk by that sign every time he fed his fish. I remember that well.

"It's a good day in the neighborhood !"

I told my wife I was going to hang it in the bedroom. That way she could use it to tell me if she was in the mood or not. She said "It would always be on red!"

"It would always be on red!"


ummm, errr, ahh, in our family of smart a$$e$, that remark could be taken a couple of different ways..................

I think they are cool. First one I was next to that was down on ground amazed me at how large they actually are!

I want an old pay phone

way back when the local telephone company was located on our main street, they had old rotary dial pay phones for sale relatively cheap.
of course when i decided to buy one, they were all gone...........
later in life, when the basic pay phone [with buttons] was being removed because cell phones were becoming way popular, my buddy that worked for the phone company got me one. and it even has the "special" key for the coin box.

I have a payphone on a stand but it's the newest style all chipped with the fancy screen. I still need to find someone to burn the demo chip for it to make it work normally. Never see payphones for sale for decent prices around here.

I know you do and I'm jealous

Very cool

Did it include used gum in the change receptacle?

sorry to say, there was no gum there.
reminds me of the old song [something to the effect] : "does the chewing gum taste better after being stuck on the bed post over night ?"

I didn't necessarily want that kind when I got it but I wanted one and that's what popped up I still haven't opened it, the locks on it look heftier then the ones you usually see on things like that so I don't want to have problems drilling them out and find out there was an easier way of dealing with it.

I have had this one for about 2 years. All alum and heavy

Those 4-way signals are worth a pretty penny. That's an awesome looking signal.

I've been searching online for another WALK/DONT WALK half and haven't seen anything. A few bare housings and reflector but no lens mount and nothing complete. I may have to piece another one together. For now, I ordered a combination WALK/DONT WALK LED insert for this one so I can have a working unit. The regular incandescent lights and lenses are cooler then the LEDs so I'll keep looking for another half to complete my setup.

Over the weekend I drove past a flee market and garage sale. Something told me to turn around and go back. I came away with a couple cool signs. The railroad sign is aluminum but the weight limit sign is steel and very heavy. Someone put some reflective stickers over the weight limit #s so I had to see what was under them. A half hour with heat gun and scraper took care of that. It looks way better now.

I think I paid 250 for the 4way. Had 3 missing lense. Replaced them. Had it blasted and I repainted it. Hung it up im happy with it

People are asking way more for those now. You did good!

I have an old heavy three light, never looked that good at it as I have never had the time to hang it up or try and get it working. I know some of the real old ones were three phase! I will have to take a picture and post it here...