About Atlanta's old system...

[4J25]

That looks awesome! Shame I didn't know about it during my last visit, I walked that street a few times.

[Brendan W]

That looks awesome! Shame I didn't know about it during my last visit, I walked that street a few times.

I feel ya, I've probably walked under the thing hundreds of times and didn't even notice it.

On another note, I received a bit of interesting information from Calvin. Fort McPhereson allegedly has an STH-10 somewhere. I'm actively searching for it.

[Brendan W]

Alrighty boys and girls, I have HUGE news.

You know how ATL had directos, right? Well get this: ONE IS LEFT. I have uncovered a location list from a 1953 AJC article. It lists the following locations:
Murphy High School
Ida Williams Library
Atlanta Stockade
Fulton County Health Center
Noland Building
Brown High School
Formwalt School
Fire Station 25
Capitol View School
Inman School
Laura Haygood School
Morris Brandon School
Browns Mill & Cleveland

One more location not listed was discovered as well. This location being behind East Point's Fire Station; as we can see below. Sadly, it is gone

eastpointmd.png (280.69 KiB) Viewed 10573 times

Now let's get ready to defecate bricks (mad props to someone22 for the screencaps):

unknown (9).png (673.61 KiB) Viewed 10575 times

unknown (10).png (84.54 KiB) Viewed 10575 times

May not look like much, but that is indeed a mobil directo. This particular one is atop the stockade on Glenwood Ave. near the zoo. The siren is in pieces, I think, but regardless it is still a directo, and the only remaining one at that methinks

[Someone22]

Here's another sweet angle.

As you can see it's in pieces.

Mobild.png (1.22 MiB) Viewed 10573 times

[Model L]

its there all right
appears to be missing its projector horn. nice find!

[Brendan W]

Got some more info about ATL. At the end of 1953, they had 25 gas mobil directos. 15 were in Atlanta proper (locations above), ten were in DeKalb County, and one each in East Point and Marietta. I know of only 3 in DeKalb as of this moment: Laura Steele School, Glenco Pharmacy, and Druid Hills High. I will continue to update this post as more info is found.

[Brendan W]

Hate to bump, but I have some amazing news. A really old 5 or 7 just turned up thanks to a friend of mine finding it. It is in the red oak area on White City Rd. Here is a streetview link for those of you who want to see. I'm willing to bet this is one of ATL's original sirens.

https://goo.gl/maps/NTuv86CJvfQ2

[freebrickproductions]

Hate to bump, but I have some amazing news. A really old 5 or 7 just turned up thanks to a friend of mine finding it. It is in the red oak area on White City Rd. Here is a streetview link for those of you who want to see. I'm willing to bet this is one of ATL's original sirens.

https://goo.gl/maps/NTuv86CJvfQ2

No wonder no-one knew about it, that thing is buried in this trees!

[Brendan W]

Woo-hoo, bump time with a couple of nice photos of Atlanta CD sirens:

First up, we have this photo from 1977 of Little Five Points. You can see a thunderbolt in the background.


One more shot of the above unit. Center right:


And lastly, from October 1967, we have this photo featuring a Mobil-Directo. This siren was off of Peachtree Rd.

[bobcat418]

Well this has been a pretty long time in the making, I had hoped to get to this last year but between life and the pandemic, things just got too crazy. Today though, I met up with Brendan W and Will (TNT1001) and we are pleased to announce that as of Saturday, April 3rd 2021 the Atlanta Stockade Mobil Directo is confirmed to exist and has been photographed by drone! The entire siren, sans the upper horn and rotator belts/chains appears to be present, but on its side. The good news is that all of the noise making bits are present and it is an 8 port model. My best guess as to why the siren is in this state is that the siren was set to be removed, however with its size and weight, the removal crew simply took the parts that were easy to remove down and laid the rest of the siren on its side so that it would not be easily visible from the ground. The old stockade has now been renovated into an office complex known as Glencastle but despite these renovations the siren still remains. This is the sixth gasoline powered Mobil Directo known to still exist which is kind of mind boggling given the fact that Atlanta had 25 of these at one time. I am still almost at a loss for words, it is incredible to know that this part of the City of Atlanta's history has not been wiped out for good. Without further ado, here are the photos:

A view from above and west of the turret:
by bobcat418, on Flickr

A bit of a closer view from the same spot:
by bobcat418, on Flickr

A view from directly above:
by bobcat418, on Flickr

Another angle from above:
by bobcat418, on Flickr

The siren from the southeast, note the visible 8 port chopper:
by bobcat418, on Flickr

The siren from due south:
by bobcat418, on Flickr

A view from the southwest:
by bobcat418, on Flickr

Just below the siren, unfortunately the horn did not appear to be down here:
by bobcat418, on Flickr

Viewing the siren from due east:
by bobcat418, on Flickr

A photo of us on the ground with the siren visible:
by bobcat418, on Flickr

A BTS of Will's BTS:
by bobcat418, on Flickr

Just for fun, I stopped by the last remaining Thunderbolt in Cobb County, located at Meridian Brick on the way home. A total of 30 were purchased from Dekalb County in the late 80s/early 90s and made up most of the Cobb system until their replacement, mostly in the early 2010s but with a few stragglers hanging around until 2016. This was part of the Smyrna system in Cobb County, which now consists of Whelen Vortexes but was formerly comprised of STH-10s, a few WS-1004s, and two Thunderbolts. Here are the photos of that siren:

The front of the siren:
by bobcat418, on Flickr

A side profile view:
by bobcat418, on Flickr

The siren with the City of Atlanta in the background:
by bobcat418, on Flickr

Overall, I am thrilled that this discovery has been made and I am really thankful for all of the help from the siren community! I hope that you enjoyed these photos.