This signal also popped up on Ebay and I just knew I had to have it. More than likely from the 1940’s. A W.S. Darley D 200 12 bulb signal. Original price in 1944 was $99.95 but I paid a little more than that. It came from Georgia and I know nothing about it’s history, other than it was given a sloppy coat of yellow paint over the original silver. I acquired it in January 2018.
W. S. Darley & Co. was founded in 1908 as a supplier of municipal supplies through catalogs. Small towns across America could order anything out of the catalog from a police whistle to a complete fire engine. In the days before major supply chains, catalogs were a common way to acquire supplies and equipment in rural areas.
Early on in its business Darley started producing a line of simple but durable traffic signals and beacons. The vast majority were “stand alone” single fixed 4-way signals with internal controllers mounted inside on the bottom plates of the signals. Darley also produced single face signals for oddly shaped intersections that were operated from post mounted controllers.
Before WW-II, Darley’s catalog sales made it’s “Simplex” traffic signals the most popular traffic signal line in America. Darley dropped its traffic signal line from its catalog in the early 1960s.
Here is was when I got it. First time I had ever used Uship. Pretty cool and not that expensive and painless. The guy who delivered it even brought it inside for me.
Yes, it was in the kitchen of our house. I had to test it. and thankfully, the wife doesn’t think i’m too weird bringing traffic lights into our house.
It is in overall good shape. Light bulbs could be older than me. Never seen anything like it. Has what’s probably the original controller in it. Here’s a video of it running. This is also how signals used to function a long time ago.
Tony's Traffic Light Site 