A Brief History
One of the leading brands of traffic control equipment in the early 20th century was American Gas Accumulator (AGA). Founded in Elizabeth, NJ in 1911, AGA was a child company of Aktiebolaget Gas Accumulator of Stockholm, Sweden; a company that, among other things, greatly innovated the design of acetylene lamps for light houses, bouys, and aviation beacons. This page’s banner photo shows the unmistakable silhouette of an AGA traffic signal in Stockholm.
The photo on the left/above is an AGA island beacon in Jersey City in the 1920s.
AGA’s porcelain CAUTION CURVE beacons were pretty widespread in the ’20s in New Jersey. This one was photographed on (pre-1953) NJ route 27 in Lawrenceville.
The 4-way adjustable signal on the left (above, in mobile layout) is one of the Swedish-made AGA signals with the circular door style in Stockholm. The visor shape and the apparently cast-on hinge pin retainers make this signal different than any I’ve seen in the USA.
Photo by the late Holger Ellgaard.
Right/above, another adjustable AGA signal in Stockholm, this one mounted atop a traffic officer’s booth. Photo taken from a Vintage News online article.
The AGA Saga
“The AGA Saga”, seen in the mosaic above, is published on the AGA Museum site. More excellent historical information on AGA and its signal division is also provided at the Highway Divides Wiki.
Trade ads for American Gas Accumulator signals from 1930 and 1931.
Signal Service Corporation Takes Over (1932)
Signal Service Corporation (SSC), also of Elizabeth, took over production of AGA signals in 1932. According to page 1120 of this FTC antitrust complaint, SSC ceased producing traffic signals in 1941. I assume SSC did not, for whatever reason, re-tool for alternative materials during World War II, like some other manufacturers did. In 1945, Marbelite took over SSC’s Traffic Signal & Controller Division, which was still in existence, and they reincarnated the SSC-style signal for about a year or two.
Trade ads for Signal Service Corporation signals.
Marbelite Takes Over (1945)
Marbelite’s takeover of SSC’s Traffic Signal & Controller division (1945). The illustration in the announcement above depicts a signal design that Marbelite was already making before the acquisition. It did not look radically different than the SSC signals they took over the manufacture of. Marbelite would make the SSC style signals for only about two years. They ceased the production after they took over the Horni Signal Mfg. Corp. signal production in 1947.
Collector John Stone from Michigan recently shared photos of a Signal Service electromechanical controller that he found. Note the AGA logo on the timing dial.
Signal Head Timeline
Credit goes to collectors in the Highway Divides forum for their detailed reporting on these old signals; most notably to Larry Currie, Lary Brown and Willis Lamm. An excellent photo “tour” of a restored Signal Service traffic light can be found at Willis Lamm’s site.
Externally, there is not much variation of the AGA/SSC/Marbelite signal heads across the span of their manufacture. The most significant change occurred around 1931 when AGA replaced the circular doors (above, left) with the more squarish doors (above, right). Continue reading below for more detail on this design change.
Pre-1931, the circular doors closed over a reflector assembly that swiveled on the same hinge with the lens door. Photos above provided by Marty Regan.
In 1931, AGA did away with the swiveling reflector assembly and began mounting the reflector frames directly to the housing with four spring-loaded fasteners on the corners. The lens-door shape was changed to a “squircle” shape to cover the fasteners.
The original AGA lights had two kinds of cast hinge pin retainers; a retainer with two “tiers” on the latch side (left photo, yellow arrow) and one with four tiers on the hinge side (left photo, red arrow). When they switched to the new reflector design, they used the 2-tier cast retainer on both sides for a short time, but they soon replaced that retainer with a cheaper stamped metal retainer (right photo, green arrow). The stamped retainers are much more “common”. UPDATE: The Swedish signal featured above appears to have cast retainers, so that may have been the original design, at least for adjustable signals.
Recent Sightings
From the Garden State
Photo set above:
1: There are still a few fixed-face AGA/SSC signals in Hudson County. I photographed this 4-way signal in Union City in 2003. I believe it is still in service today, retrofitted with LEDs.
2: This 4-way beacon is on display at the LBI Museum in Beach Haven. The marker says it was installed at Centre & Bay Avenues in 1939. Photo courtesy of Chris Sebes.
3: The AGA single-face light that served in Mahwah until it was sadly and unceremoniously replaced around 2010. I took the photo approximately in 2005. Hopefully it will show up someday like this AGA found at a New Jersey estate sale.
4: One of two round-door AGA beacons in Summit (photo by Malcolm McPherson).
Other States
The first two photos in the mosaic above are of the fixed-face 3-way in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY. Still incandescent, and still on the original mast arm with decorative attachments. Note the studded elbow above the hanger! The third photo is of the incandescent (all Kopp #27 lenses) SSC that was recently removed from service in Gassaway, WV. The photographer caught all three colors as they were simultaneously lit by the old cam shaft controller switching from green to red. The last photo was taken in Crafton, PA, in 2019.
Also check out this NOS SSC beacon, originally owned by a New York State municipality, that a reader of this website shared with me.
Garden State Signals 
