Revisiting George AFB, and Building Layout Sections 4 and 3

This time we'll revisit George Air Force Base (near Victorville), and then we'll look at recent progress on benchwork for layout Sections 4 and 3.

George AFB began as the Victorville Army Flying School during WW2:

 

Here are some photos of the flight line and control tower, as seen in a yearbook in 1942:

The air base was served by a Santa Fe branch line (the Adelanto Spur) that left the main line at the Lower Narrows and climbed up to the plateau where the air base was located.

In 1947, when the Air Force was formed from the Army Air Force, Chard Walker shot this photo of the Army 45-ton switcher visiting the Victorville depot, where it periodically turned on the wye to equalize the wear on its flanges (because all the curves on the base went in the same direction):

Here's a later USAF GE 80-tonner that may have worked at George AFB:

 

Here's a 1959 aerial photo of the part of the base where most of the railroad spurs were located:

The rail line enters this photo diagonally from near the lower right corner, then curves north to reach the rows of warehouses you see in the center of the photo.  Just north of the warehouses are the two main hangars along the flight line, where you can see various USAF planes parked.

Here's a more distant view of the south end of the base, just below the previous view, where the oil spur and the bomb spur were located:

The rail line enters this view from the lower right corner, then branches back south to the bomb spur, where the bomb storage buildings can be seen in that same corner of the photo.  Proceeding diagonally to the NW, the rail line passes four jet fuel storage tanks, where there was a spur for unloading tank cars.  At the upper left corner, the line curves north into the warehouse part of the base that we saw in the previous photo.

If I live long enough, I would like to model these parts of George AFB, since I was in the Air Force long ago.  The model would sit on top of the large, rectangular helix that will be located in the layout's staging room, as seen in this drawing by Byron Henderson for my article in Layout Design Journal #68:

The rail line enters the base at the lower left, passes the bomb spur and later the oil spur, and then passes the one-stall engine house and arrives at spurs that serve Base Supply, the rows of warehouses, and the lumber shed and shop.  Note the hangar and control tower beside the runway apron.

Here's a view of some barracks on the base in the 1950s, with two jet fuel tanks in the distance:

 

Here's a later (2001) stitched-together view of the rows of warehouses served by the railroad, thanks to Gary Gray:

 And here's a view of the back side of the engine house, also by Gary Gray:

 Here's a postcard view of activity on the flight line long ago:

 

The last time we visited the base in this blog, some people enjoyed seeing actress Barbara Lang posing by a 1957 billboard for a GAFB air show.  So, here she is again, posing by another sign for GAFB:

She was supposed to star in "Jailhouse Rock" with Elvis Presley, but didn't.

This completes our second tour of various scenes from my future layout.

In the last two weeks I've been able to put Section 4 of my layout up on legs, and then Section 3.

I had to build an extension to Section 4 to support the tracks on the inside of the curve coming around the far end of the layout, which I somehow missed doing earlier.  The new triangular addition is called Section 4A.

Here is the frame for Section 4-4A after it was up on legs, standing in front of the previous Section 5.  The notched plywood tops are leaning against Section 5:
 

Here's a view of Section 4 (on the right) from an opposite angle after the plywood tops were in place:

Then I worked on Section 3.  I decided to add a rectangular outrigger to the frame where I could attach extra legs that could support the point on the upper deck that the fold-down wye tail will be hinged to someday.  Here's the frame for Section 3 after it was up on nine legs:

The new outrigger can be seen in the left distance.  Behind Section 3 is Section 4, and to the right of there is Section 5.

And here is Section 3 from the opposite angle, after the plywood was notched and placed on top:

The extended part of the frame is in the left foreground.  If this were the upper deck, the tail of the Victorville wye would be hinged to this area.

That's all for now.