It was a busy time of year for the spare board, if you worked hard and did not book too much rest you could get enough shifts and get paid overtime when called out. I was able to get in 10 shifts in 11 days working the following assignments 2300 Government, 2300 Pulldown, 1400 Pulldown, 1500 Hump, 700 “N” Yard GYO, 1500 Pulldown, 2230 Tramp GYO, 2300 Government #12 Relief, 1400 Industrial, 1115 Extra, extra engines were called out off the spare board, and a Yard Foreman was usually taken from another assignment using a helper who had his Yard Foreman’s ticket, or from a qualified Yard Foreman on days off who wanted some overtime, in this case the Foreman was Bill Graham working overtime, the locomotive engineer came from the engineers spare board, on this particular extra we were sent out on a Sunday to do some switching at Ogden Shops, it was interesting going back and switching the Yard tracks their after leaving in 1967 when I was laid off, it gave me a new perspective to the Yard at Ogden that was called T-Yard with its dozens of tracks stored with cars and locomotives awaiting repair, or for scrapping, and many boxcars used for storage of materials for the Stores Department, these were the tracks we were concerned with that day. As I had mentioned in an earlier thread when I worked at Ogden, there was a yardmaster and an regular assignment who did the switching there from Monday to Friday, but change was in the winds, that summer the yardmaster and yard assignment were abolished, and from that time forward all the switching to be done inside the Ogden complex would be looked after by car department personnel who are trained to operate track mobiles like the one I worked as a helper with when I was employed by the Phoenix pipe plant in the summer of 1972. The only movement by the CPR yard from Alyth was a once a day transfer from Monday to Friday, cars and locomotives to be repaired were brought out every afternoon, to get permission to enter the Yard at Ogden a supervisor was phoned from a box located at the switch to enter Ogden Shops, after the supervisor had advised all his personnel operating the track mobiles to stop switching, the supervisor unlocked an electric switch lock at the switch and the yard assignment was allowed to enter the Yard and pull the transfer into a designated track, come out of the track and run around through a clear track to the east end of the Ogden yard and couple onto a track full of repaired locomotives and rolling stock to take back to Alyth.
July was a very busy month by then there was so many vacancies due to holidays, and more men were hired for the spare board that was placed on an assignment the #12 Relief on July 15, that means I can hold the job as a regular assignment with two days off, I was bumped off this assignment on July 21, bumped means that I was displaced by another Yardman who had more seniority, I then went on a vacancy on the 2300 Bleeder job on July 22, I held this assignment until July 28.