Has everyone been enjoying our little touch of cool weather? I looked at the thermometer in my Jeep and it read at 48 degrees Monday morning. I was cold. Looks to warm up next weekend.

At one time Newhall had an airport. It was really an auxiliary landing field, but to the folks in this valley, it was an airport. It was a place for commercial planes to land when the main airport in Los Angeles was closed due to fog. No, it wasn’t LAX. The main airport for Los Angeles started as the airport in Burbank. I still love flying to and from Burbank.

Recently my oldest son flew into Burbank. It was a trip his job had him take. I told him to make sure, for the last leg of the flight from Phoenix, to sit clear in the back. That way he could get off the plane faster when it got to Burbank. It is an airport where they still roll out stairs for folks to get on and off the plane.

Today the best reason for getting flights in and out of Burbank is really easy to understand. I’ll state it numerically: the 405. I digress.

Back in the days of the DC-3, a twin engine passenger plane, can you imagine being on the long flight from Chicago to Los Angeles (Burbank), and as you are preparing to land, you get word you’d be landing in a pasture near a dry wash between Saugus and Newhall? That’s about how the landing field looked. Gravel and grass for a runway. A few lights for early and late landings.

Glider race at Newhall Airport (Newhall Intermediate Field), 1941.

I’m not sure if passengers got to stay in the SCV or were put on buses to Burbank. Today planes can land in nearly total fog and extremely limited visibility. That was the case when our airport was in operation.

Or maybe they were able to take a train on to Los Angeles. It was a quick drive to Saugus Station to catch the train.

Back in the days of the SCV having a airport, commercial passenger service was still something only a few people could afford. It was a very expensive alternative to the train or to driving your own automobile. But it was a lot faster – if you didn’t make too many stops or get a weather-hold in places like Newhall.

Most of the time, the little airfield didn’t get any use. But it was ready.

Even today you can get an idea of the flight paths those early aeronauts traveled. Each time I fly into Burbank I can follow the way over the SCV to touching down in Burbank. Now imagine a plane not equipped with a radar system and limited radio direction-finding equipment. They navigated often by following roads and railway tracks. Maybe that is how they got the flight term, “IFR,” for I Follow Roads. No, but it is plausible.

Some of the older folks in the SCV can remember when the train was better to travel on than just about any other mode of transportation. Everyone I’ve talked with said they really enjoyed train travel; it also passed the towns quickly. Just like the folks at the California High Speed Rail Authority will tell you: It is going to be fast, efficient, inexpensive and safe.

Unlike even that early air travel, the high-speed train will have years of problems before it works well. Right now, a huge problem is that few people want it, and even fewer want to ride it. The SCV has seen an airport take up space, so with that in mind, we don’t want the tracks to take up space here. It wouldn’t be stopping here regardless.

I wonder how many miles of the new high-speed rail actually have been completed? Now that is another story.

But once upon a time, there was a governor named Jerry. He wanted a train. He is getting a train. That’s all the news for now.

Darryl Manzer grew up in the Pico Canyon oil town of Mentryville in the 1960s and attended Hart High School. After a career in the U.S. Navy he returned to live in the Santa Clarita Valley. He can be reached at dmanzer@scvhistory.com. His older commentaries are archived at DManzer.com; his newer commentaries can be accessed [here]. Watch his walking tour of Mentryville [here].