The Dust Room

The dust room, the first summer I hired on there was a few days that the mill was shut down for maintenance. So there was all kinds of jobs to do cleaning up the place, one job, I remember in particular. Three of us warehousemen were told to go to the ninth floor of the flour mill there was a Humphrey man lift that we rode up there. A Humphrey man lift is a vertical conveyor belt that runs from the second floor of the mill up to the 10th floor, there were 3 foot holes cut through the hardwood floors, the belt ran through them, and there were steps attached to the belt every 22 feet, these steps were about 1' x 18" and were angled with a hinged pivot that would flop over when the belt went over the pulley on the 10th floor, there were also handholds bolted to the conveyor belt at about chest level on both sides of the step. On the second floor, where the belt pulley was mounted, there was a wooden platform with two steps that you climbed up on and waited for the next handle and step to go by. You would then grab handhold and jump on the step, but came up, this would take you up through the eighth floors of machinery, and when you wanted to get off you just had to step backwards on the floor you wanted to get off at. To go down you went to the other side and catch a step going downwards. There was also a safety rope that ran up and down on both sides, and by pulling it the belt would stop in case of an emergency, there was also a safety switch if you forgot to get off on the top floor. To see one in the action try; http://www.humphrey-manlift.com/ Anyways back to my story about the dust room on the left side of the mill building, there are few windows as as part of the mill was used by the elevator to clean grain going into the mill, above the third and fourth windows you can see two small windows with ventilators above them, this was the dust room, where all the dust from cleaning the grain went. To get out there, you had to climb a steel ladder from the ninth floor and open up a trap door to get in there. It was dark in there, with only 4 feet of clearance the dust accumulated was about 6 inches deep and have the properties of a liquid when you try to shovel it up. Our job was to go up there and fill old paper flour sack's with this dust and carry it down the steel ladder to be disposed of. It wasn't a very pleasant job, and I can remember, years later, someone had the brilliant idea of jackhammering a hole through the cement and run a spout down to the ninth floor, where the bags could be loaded and all you had to do was to sweep the dust towards the spout. Years later, a pellet mill was installed, and this material was used in the mixture for making pellets.

More Warehouse Confessions

We had to load a boxcar with mixed bags of domestic flour one day out on the rear export loading dock. This was on the concrete platform with an elevated conveyor belt that ran the length of the warehouse. There were wooden chutes that ran from the second floor of the warehouse down to the conveyor belt at the back of the building there a metal cutoff placed at an angle that would direct the flour bag in the direction in the conveyor belt was traveling, and another cut off would send the bag down the wooden chute and into the doorway of the boxcar being loaded. Their was three of us in the car, me, a new young kid, who had just hired on, and Jerry a draft dodger who had a great sense of humor. There were three warehouseman upstairs with two wheeled carts that were bringing in the flour over and sending it down the chute. We started out with 20 pound bags which were loaded criss cross on the wheeler about eight high these came at a steady pace until we had 500 loaded in each end of the car and then they stopped. The kid asked Jerry why did they stop, to which Jerry replied oh they have just gone to get the 50-pound bags. Well sure enough the next bags were 50-pound bags of donut and cake mixes we loaded about 400 bags of these product's than they stopped. The kid again asked Jerry why did they stop, to which Jerry required that they had gone for the 100-pound bags of flour. And once again Jerry was right, and 100-pound bags of flour started coming down the chute we were working pretty hard now and after we had loaded about 200 had been loaded in the car they stopped once again. The kid said to Jerry, what is happening now, to which Jerry replied with a straight face, that they have gone to get the 200-pound bags. The kid walked out of the car and was never seen again.

One day we had a boxcar of domestic flour to load everything we needed was on the first floor of the warehouse. The boxcar we were supposed to use was on the back loading dock, so we put in the dock plate (a steel plate that bridged the loading dock and the doorway of the boxcar swept the floor lined the walls and the floor with cardboard and with our two wheeled carts loaded the car with bags of flour, that were on the shipping order. We were finished and covered the load with paper and were ready to close the door, when Pete the Shipper showed up to take a look at the load. He looked at the roof of the older boxcar and noticed two small boards had broken away and were hanging down he said the car was not fit for shipping, and said we would have to take all of flour out and reload it in a boxcar on the front loading dock.

The Export Flour Side

We also loaded a lot of export flour for Ceylon these were 50 kg jute bags that were provided by the Canadian government for food aid, we loaded 900 bags per boxcar 60 to a row 6 rows of each end of the boxcar and 3 across the middle, there were two of us in the boxcar and we loaded just about three boxcars in an eight hour shift the bags came into the boxcars from the packing room on the second floor of the flour mill via a conveyor belts and down a wooden chute the bags fell down on to our shoulders and you learned to balance the bags upright as the rows in each end were about eight feet high so you had to throw the bags over your head to finish each row. In order to keep up with the packing machine both men had to move constantly until the first three rows in the car were finished, after that one man could keep up and the other man could take a break which included sealing loaded cars and getting the next car prepared for loading. To prepare a car for loading the floor would be swept and paper from a 7-foot roll of paper would be glued to the wooden walls of the boxcar, and a smaller role of paper was used to cover the floor. The loading platform held six cars on spot when the cars were all loaded, we would have to pull the flour track down to spot up some more empties, to do this I would have to go into the basement of the elevator unloading track and start an enormous electric motor that powered the winch. Backup on ground level, the packer, is helper, and my helper were in position we would pick up the hook end of the 7/8 inch cable and the four of us would pull the cable out 200 feet and hook it on to the under frame of the boxcar, I would then operate the winch by two steel levers, one that would engage the motor with a drum of the winch, and the other lever was like a clutch that would start the cable pulling, I was protected by a steel shield in case the cable ever snapped, the cars were pulled far enough till we had another four cars on spot. While this job was outdoors I always preferred it to working indoors on the packing machines, that job while physically easier it involved two men the senior man was the head packer and one helper the packing machine operated like this the helper had a table beside him with bales of jute sacks he would take a sack off of the table and pull it over a 16 inch tube and step on a foot pedal that clamped the bag to the tube and started an auger that filled the sack with flour. When it was full. It would travel horizontally on a rubber belt conveyor towards the packer where it would stop and lift up on a built-in scale that would weigh it and a dribble of flour from a spout would top up the bag until it was the right weight, it would then travel down the belt to the next station, where the packer would sew the top of the bag shut. The bag would then travel to the end of the conveyor, where it would drop down a chute that would take it to the boxcar.

The Feed Side

At the front of the mill you can see boxcars for loading feed on the left-hand side of the picture, Pillsbury had four tracks that came off of the CPR's main line. They where on Q lead and were numbered Q9a a feed loading track you see in the foreground, the second track is Q9b which ran along the front loading platform and was used for loading feed and domestic flour, the third track Q9c is behind the mill and ran along the back loading platform It was used for loading export, domestic and bulk flour. Q9d was used for unloading grain cars that was stored in the elevator bins seen to the left of the flourmill. Most of the feed was loaded in bulk and cars had to be coopered, this involved installing the cars with wooden grain doors that were nailed in place over the two doorways from the inside, at that time the CPR started using corrugated cardboard doors with straps of hole punched steel, spaced out every 6 inches, they were nailed in place on both sides of the car door opening, and two 1-inch planks were nailed to the bottom of the doorway, and one plank at the top. I remember there was an aluminum ladder that looped on both ends this was hooked over the grain doors from inside and while straddling the grain door the ladder would be pulled out and hooked on the outside to get out of the car after it was finished. The cars were spotted with a capstan equipped with an electric motor, and a 2-inch nylon rope with a steel hook on one end. This we would attach to the under frame of the boxcar with a few little raps of the rope on the moving spool of the capstan we could position the cars on spot for loading. A curved sheet metal spout would be fastened to the top of the grain door and pointed to one end of the car would be loaded with 40 tons of feed, there was a scale up on the fifth floor of the mill that would show how many hundred weights when the scale showed 20 tons loaded the spout would be turned towards the other end of the car to complete loading. There was also a trailer that would be loaded with 15 tons of shorts, it would be backed up against the boxcar in Q9a and a straight pipe would be run through the boxcars doorways and into the trailer, I remember one evening, one of the loaders put the pipe through the boxcar doorways and started loading feed, they only problem was that the trailer was not there, it had not come back from unloading and in the morning there was a 15 ton pile of shorts laying on the ground. We would also get orders for bags of bran and shorts they were usually packed and 50 pound paper sacks. But sometimes we would get orders for 100 pound jute bags of bran, they were really awkward to load and would get jammed up in the conveyors coming down from the third-floor, where the feed packers were located.

More confessions from a Pillsbury doughboy

This flourmill started out as Alberta Flour Mills in 1915, George Lane owner of the Calgary Breweries serving as a stockholder and member of the board of directors. Despite a vigorous financial and public campaign and the injection of large loans from the stockholders Lane and William Pierce, the company sold its assets to Spillers Ltd. of England in 1925. During the 1930s, Spillers mothballed the mill, and during World War II it was used by the military as a storage warehouse. In 1947, the mill was bought and reopened as Renown Mills, they installed "B" Mill for domestic flour that had an output of 3000 hundredweight's per 24 hours. This along with the original "A" Mill that was used for export flour with its 7000 hundredweights output, gave a total of 10,000 hundredweight a day when both mills were running. In 1952 Pillsbury Mills of Minneapolis, Minnesota purchased the mill, and it became Pillsbury Canada Ltd.

There were about 15 warehousemen working day shift when I started, there was also 4 packers they ran the machines that packed flour into jute bags for export, and paper bags for domestic orders. The warehouse to me looked like it hadn't changed much since 1930, the first two floors of the brick part of the mill was warehouse space, and flour was stacked on the rough concrete floor, it originally had hardwood floors, but they were torn up due to flour beetle infestation. The bags were stacked 10 layers high everywhere you looked, the domestic flour was packed in 100-pound paper bags, and the Packer ran his machine from the third floor. It would come down a chute and go through a bag flattener to a table elbows height, where we would load up on our two wheel cart with seven bags of flour, and wheel it over to where the flour was being stacked. There would be a warehousemen there whose job was to help you unload your wheeler. The bags were stacked in threes starting on the floor we would place to bags, side-by-side, and one bag at the end of the other two on the next level we would do the opposite so the bags would be interlocked. Depending on the distance from the table to where we were stacking bags in the warehouse there would be three or four of us in constant motion to keep up with the Packer. We would do this, from 8 o'clock till 10 o'clock in the morning and have a 15 minute coffee break then worked till 12 noon and take a half an hour lunch break worked till 2 p.m. then a 15 minute break, and worked till 4 p.m. when the next shift started.

If we were finished on the second floor the table would be folded down and a chute put in connecting to the first floor to a conveyor belt that would send the bags down to a shoulder height table where we would load up our wheelers, or if close enough 2 of us would carry the bags on our shoulder and pile up the flour. The advantage of the shoulder height table was that you learned how to carry 100-pound bag upright and using the muscles in your shoulder you could propel the bag 2 feet over your head, which was the height of 10 layers of bags. The flour could also be routed out to the front-loading dock, where you see the boxcars in my picture. They would come off on other conveyor belt into the box car were two men would load it 6 rows in each end and 3 rows across the doorway, at 60 bags to a row 900 hundredweights would be loaded in each car. You have to understand that, while some crews would be stacking the new flour on the warehouse floor, other crews would be loading and unloading trucks and box cars at the back loading dock of the mill. Every bag in the warehouse was handled at least two times before it reached its destination. The work was very physical, and I understood what Pete said about me not being able to handle the work, this made me all the more determined to carry on. The first month was the worst, but after that I started getting into good shape. More to come later.

Confessions of a Pillsbury Doughboy

I remember quite well, a beautiful July summer day, me and my best friend, Jimmy had gone down to the Calgary Brewry and picked up a couple of cases of cold beer. We were on our way back to Ogden to enjoy these refreshments down at the beaver dam. Anyways, Jimmy asked me how I was making out, finding a new job I told him about my getting rejected at the CPR Alyth Shops. We were driving down Portland Street, and Jimmy suggested that I try the flour mill on Bonniebrook Road that we were approaching and I said I wasn't in the mood to look for work now. He said of I didn't try I would get no beer so reluctantly I went in to the building's office and asked if they were hiring. They told me to go to the shippers office and ask for Pete Luft I went there into the first floor of the warehouse. It was a big warehouse with bags of flour, stored all over the place. I talked to Pete and he looked at me and said, I have a job, but I don't think you can handle it. To this I replied that I would like to give it a try, he said okay you can start right now, I was thinking about the cold beer, and told him I have a doctors appointment, but could start tomorrow. He said fine we'll see you at eight o'clock in the morning. Well Jimmy and I went and drank all the beer with a few other friends, and I went home to rest up for my new job. I woke up in the morning with a hangover, and caught the Ogden bus that would take me to Bonniebrook to start my new career with Pillsbury Canada at 4002 Bonniebrook Road. The mill was one of two that Pillsbury owned in Canada, there was a smaller one in the Midland Ontario and this monster that could pump out 10,000 hundredweights in 24 hours. The mill was nonunion not like the ones in the United States, and I was to be paid $1.80 an hour as a warehouseman, or what I was to learn being a human fork lift.

CPR's Alyth Shops

In late June 1968, I decided to try to get a job as a laborer at the CPR's Alyth Shops. They were located on the Eastside of the Alyth Overpass across from the stockyards. I went to the office of the Laborers Foreman Max Tims, I told him that I had worked at Ogden and gave him my employee number; he said he would hire me, but he needed a birth certificate. I didn't have one to show, so I went downtown to the Bowlin Building where the Provincial Government had their offices, I applied for a new birth certificate, which would have to be sent down from Vital Statistics in Edmonton. The clerk said he could expedite my order and have it down in Calgary the next day, so the next day I picked up my new birth certificate. I went down to Alyth to see Max, I showed him my new birth certificate, but he said he could not hire me and could give me no explanation why. I figured it must have had something to do with the time I was off sick and paid by Sun Life in 1966. Anyways, that was it for the CPR, I would have to find employment elsewhere.

Alyth Shops are quite different from Ogden, that was a major repair shop. Alyth is a running repair shop that is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week It is designed to service and do light repairs to locomotives in active service. When trains arrive from Red Deer, Field, Lethbridge, Fort Macleod, and Medicine Hat the locomotives are taken from the train to the east and of the shops, where they are filled with fuel, water, and sand. The incoming locomotive engineer will book any repairs required on his report. If no repairs are required the locomotive consist world be ready to send out on another train. If repairs are required the locomotive will be moved inside one of the shops bays the repairs will be done. In the photos I have attached shows the West End of the diesel shop, where engines come out after being repaired.

Sprinkler Fitting at the Firestone Warehouse

When I was finished, the Crossfield job I was sent to another workplace to help a journeyman test a sprinkler system that had been installed in a cinderblock warehouse that had been built in the Mayland Industrial Park above Barlow Trail which was service by the CPR. It was a new warehouse with a recycled roof, which was taken off of a Scott National produce warehouse that had been located downtown. And the whole sprinkler system from that building was being recycled too. Originally the plan was to leave the sprinkler system branches with the roof sections, but when they lifted the first action off of the roof of the old warehouse it fell breaking all the sprinkler pipes. So all the branch lines were taken out of the roof sections and stored at Trotter and Morton's yard for a couple years till the new warehouse was finished and the roof reinstalled. When we arrived at the new warehouse in the roof was in place, and all the branch lines were tied in to the sprinkler main, and our job was to do a hydrostatic test and fix any leaks, it sounded simple enough and we figured we would be done in a week. To do the test we had to pressurize the system to 225 pounds, city water pressure was about 60 pounds, well; we turned on the water from the city line. And I tell you, it looked like we had rainstorm inside the building there was 628 sprinkler heads and every one was leaking, plus many other fittings. Storing these branch lines in the yard for two years didn't help the situation, sprinkler fittings are made cast-iron, and crack easily under the punishment they received left in the outdoors for that period of time. The warehouse was empty, and it had a 1-ton truck with scaffolding mounted on its flatbed, so it was quite easy to drive around and change all a sprinkler heads, we did this and tried our test again. We got up to 80 pounds, and the leaks started showing at the fittings. So we drove the truck around and started changing out all of the fittings that were leaking, this took more time than the sprinkler heads, which you could do with a crescent wrench and Teflon tape to seal them. The branch lines, started out with 2 inch pipe, and went down to 1/2-inch if my memory serves me correct. So we would start from the smallest diameter and worked back to where the branch tied into the sprinkler main dozens of fittings we would change out and try our test again. 95 pounds pressure, and more leaks we had been on this job over 3 weeks now and had a long, long way to go. On some of the bigger pipe that was 5 inches in diameter we had to use a compound leverage wrench that was called the “Super Six” it was a 48 inch pipe wrench that had two hinges with holes near its head, and a chain vice that was wrapped around the fitting and had a pivot that the hole in the wrench head was attached to, this gave you a lot of extra leverage to tighten pipe in to these big fittings. The warehouse was being built for the Firestone Tire Company plant to store tires in, and that's what they started to do. Our truck was taken away and tires were stored on the floor 10 feet high. This made the job, a real challenge we had to use a stepladder to get on top of the stacks of tires, and lay planks across them and use extension ladders to climb up to the leaks with our pipe wrenches and replace fittings. We persevered and got the pressure up to 180 pounds, then I was taken off the job and sent back to A.R. Wrights this was in June 1968. I was sent to work on a small steel business that was being built in Manchester District when this was done I was laid-off. That was always the problem in the construction trades its either feast or famine, I had learned a lot of useful skills that would help me out later in life, and had saved enough to tide me over for a while.

Bank of Commerce, Crossfield, Alberta

When our work at Palliser Square was finished, I went to work with a journeyman and one other apprentice. We were to install a new heating system in the Bank of Commerce at Crossfield, Alberta, a small rural community 25 miles north of Calgary. We drove out every day in a pickup truck from the shop. The Bank building is a two story red brick structure on the corner of Railway Street. The bank already had a hot water heating system, with old cast-iron radiators, and an old low-pressure gas-fired boiler in the basement. We were to install a new boiler and baseboard radiant heaters on the first two floors, but before we did this the old system had to be disconnected and removed. The cast-iron radiators were heavy, but we managed to drag them down the back stairs from the second floor, and out the back door from the main level. The old boiler in the basement was another challenge, as it had been assembled in sections many years ago, and weighed about 800 pounds. The solution to this was to use sledgehammers and break the boiler up into small manageable pieces, seeing that it was all going to the scrap yard. After we had finished stripping out the old system, we started installing the new boiler and copper piping up to the two floors, where radiant baseboard heaters were installed. They were links of copper pipe about 1 inch in diameter, with aluminum fins, 5 inch square, spaced out about 1/4" along the length of pipe, and were covered with a metal shrouding with louvers to let out heat. We also installed zone valves and several thermostats around the building, so heat could be regulated to the users preference in the different offices. I remember we used to go for our coffee breaks up the street at a small Chinese restaurant called the PDQ we didn't know what that stood for, but figured it must be the service that was Pretty Damn Quick. Ha Ha Ha. Well, this job was a nice change of scenery, it was springtime, and the weather was nice that spring of 1968.

From A.R. Wright to Trotter and Morton

When we finished the job at the pipe plant I went and work on a couple of small jobs on new buildings that were being constructed near our shop on MacLeod Trail. One was across the trail, and was called the Oriental Gardens a fancy new restaurant that had a little wooden bridge that crossed over water in a pond full of fish at its entrance. We were working outside and had a ditch, excavated around the building, where we installed weeping tile. Now weeping tile is made from clay and comes in 18-inch lengths with a bore diameter of 6 inches. The tiles were butted up against each other on a slight incline in the ditch towards the storm sewer. Their purpose was to drain water away from a building that would otherwise be susceptible to flooding without it. The next job I remembered working on was a Volkswagen dealership called Pados a block north of our shop. This involved installing soil pipe, and copper piping for the washrooms, and drains for the shop floor. After this I went and worked with one of the rural plumbers who looked after farmers wells and plumbing. Work was getting a little slow at Wright's so I ended up working in the shop here, I restocked bins with pipe fittings that were returned from jobsites, when the work was finished. One other job I had was whenever a plumber changed a hot water heater. I would go there with a pickup truck, and the two of us would haul out the old hot water heater, and when I had a truckload, I would take them to the city dump. I remember one apartment building where the hot water heater was installed in a pit, it was a big hot water heater, and we had to put ropes underneath it and hoist it straight up out of the pit it took four of us to do this job. I was sent over to a restaurant called the Gasthaus, It had a grease trap in its kitchen, and this was a cubic steel box a yard in dimension. All the drains from the kitchens sinks went through this box, and any grease from the dishwashing one end up in it. My job was to unfasten the top of this box and clean out all the accumulated grease that had filled it. This was a pretty gross job, I had to break up this block of fat with a steel pole and shovel out all this rancid grease, that didn't smell very good. It was jobs like this that made me think that pipefitting would be a better trade than plumbing. At this time, a company called Trotter and Morton was doing most of the work projects in the city of Calgary. So most of the apprentices, including me, who worked in shops that had no work were sent over to work for them.

Trotter and Morton had their shop on Forge Road, and they had just finished pouring the Husky Tower in downtown Calgary on 9th Ave and Center St. where the old CPR station used to be. An office building complex with a four-story Parkade called Palliser Square was to be built behind the structure, and I was sent to this work site on the corner of 10th Ave and 1st St West. The first job we had to do was reroute the steam and water lines from the boiler room on 10th Ave to a tunnel that connected to the CPR's Palliser Hotel on 9th Ave. The boilers in the powerhouse on 10th Ave were very old, the oldest I had ever seen, they were to be taken out of service and a modern Cleaver Brooks packaged boiler was to be installed on the second floor of the Parkade to replace them. The old powerhouse supplied steam heat for the hotel and a laundry that was on 10th Ave. The steam line was 8-inch pipe that was welded together and ran through a ditch dug on 10th Ave, and the 5-inch waterline was to follow the same route to tie them into the tunnel that ran into the Palliser Hotel. The laundry was obsolete and was being torn down. The first job I had was to take lengths of old 5 inch water pipe and cut them off clean with a set of pipe cutters, and ream out any burrs on the inside diameter. We then had to cut a groove into the pipe about 1 inch from the end to be used with a Victaulic Coupling to join the lengths of pipe together. The Victaulic Coupling was a two piece casting that would fit into the grooves on each end of the pipes when two nuts and bolts were tightened to join the two castings together. In the middle of this was a rubber gasket that would seal the two ends of pipe to prevent it from leaking. To cut these grooves, we had a large mechanical groover that was run with a power motor and a drive shaft. The teeth on the groover were about half an inch wide, and we cut the groove about 1/8 of an inch deep. The Parkade itself was being built over the CPR's four Depot tracks. It was winter, and in order to pour cement the forms were all shrouded in plastic sheeting, and gas heaters were installed to keep the forms heated. My job was to run gas line to the heaters and light them, there was a three-inch gas line set up temporarily on cross bars made of two by sixes that ran the length of the Parkade. There were gas cock's at 30 foot intervals where I would run the gas from, I would run a 1 inch gas line straight up 40 feet to the shrouding where the cement was to be poured next. I would climb up a ladder to the forms made of 2 by 10's with the plastic shrouding stapled on underneath here I would put a reducing tee fitting on the 1 inch gas line, reducing it to 3/4", and run 3/4" gas pipe along the 2 x 10's to where the gas heaters were in position. I would then run the 3/4" gas pipe up to the heater and would then use a reducing elbow to run 1/2" gas pipe and shut off cock into the heater, which I would then light and test my work for leaks. This would be done with a sense of smell and matches, if there was a bad leak you would smell it otherwise I would light a match and run it around each joint I had made, if there was a leak a small blue flame would appear I would then have to shut off the gas and change fittings or pipe, where necessary. To join these fittings, together I would apply pipe dope (a mixture of powdered lead in linseed oil) to the threads with a brush, and the fittings and pipe were joined together and tightened using to pipe wrenches one to hold the fitting, and the other to tighten the pipe into the fitting. Yes, it was quite an experience to crawl around on this 2 x 10's looking down to the ground through the plastic, and suddenly a train would run underneath heading west to the mountains, or going east to the yard at Alyth. Another ritual, we observed daily was the arrival and departure of passenger trains that still carried mail, the city of Calgary's post office was located on the corner of 9th West of the CPR's Palliser Hotel at the back of the post office was a spur for spotting cars of mail, and daily a postman would drive his tractor and a baggage cart with mail from a ramp on the platform behind the post office down the platform in the Depot to where the passenger trains would arrive. Here he would wait till the incoming train had stopped and he would be in position besides the baggage car, that also carried the mail, here he would exchange his out going mail with the incoming mail for Calgary and would proceed back to the post office with the new mail for sorting.

The photographs I have attached above show the shaft of the Husky Tower after the cement had been poured, a rotating restaurant was placed on top of this pylon and at 635 feet. It became the tallest structure in the city of Calgary on until the mid-1980s when the Petro Canada towers were built. The second picture I took looking west at the Palliser Square Parkade and the train tracks running underneath it.

Humble abode

When I left the CPR, I had to move from where I had room and board. I moved into an apartment and boarded with a woman and her three children. The place was pretty oLd and was in the back of the building on the left-hand side shown in the picture. Featherstone's General store was on the coroner, and Ogden's first post office was located in the middle building. The building we lived in was originally a movie theater from what I have read. The photo was from the book "The Ogden Whistle" a History of the districts of Ogden, Lynnwood, and Millican Estates. Cable's General store was located across the street on the right-hand side of the picture, and had already been torn down when this picture was taken in 1976. I lived here during the winter of 1967 and 1968, and boy was it cold sleeping in the back bedroom, which was poorly insulated, and in the mornings there would be frost on the walls. In the spring I moved a block north of here to a house owned by Wes and Mary Davis, who own the riding Academy located behind the Ogden shops. It was a good place for room and board, and I stayed with them for a year and a half. I remember in the winter of 1968-1969, I was home during the day and Mary was notified that their horses had escaped and were running around in the Ogden Shops property. So off we went down into the Ogden Shops yard to round up these horses, it was a very cold day, and the snow was quite deep. We eventually got all the horses back into their acreage. And were happy to take a rest, one of the Ogden Shops employees invited us into his little greenhouse over by the No.2. Coach shop. He had the kettle on, and made us a nice pot of tea.

The Big Inch Pipe Plant

In the last posting I talked about the cast-iron soil pipe plant located north of Ogden Shops, here I've attached a picture of a pipe plant located south of Ogden Shops. When I first came to Ogden. It was called The Big Inch pipe plant, and sat idle for a lack of business; I think the largest pipe they made was around 12 inch. The long steel roof building you see on the left was the entire plant. Its name was changed to Alberta, Phoenix, pipe and tube and in 1968. The steel roof building on the right was added, along with equipment to do sub arc welding with this equipment in the mill could now manufacture 36-inch pipe. Wright’s sent me to this jobsite in the winter, and it was a great place to work being all enclosed from the elements outside. There was lots of work, running airlines for the carriages that would move the rolled pipe to the welding machines that were located on the north end of this new structure. There is a washroom for the employees that was built inside this large structure, and I remember running copper pipe to a hot water heater that was located on the roof of the structure. On the left-hand side of this aerial view you can see some houses in Ogden, and in between the houses and the plant is the CPR's mainline to Medicine Hat. This picture was taken in the 1980s, when the plant was bought out by Prudential Pipe & Steel so all you can see in the yard to the left and to the right of the plant is small diameter pipe and steel that they now manufacture. To the north of this picture out of view is a rendering plant that used really stink in the summer when I worked at Ogden Shops, and there was a liquid air plant that manufactured nitrogen, oxygen, helium, and other rare gases. The only other business located in the huge acreage behind Ogden Shops was a Riding Academy.

Working with cast-iron soil pipe

The first job I worked on for A.R. Wright Plumbing and Heating was a two-story 16 suite apartment building that was to be built at 19th St and 35 Ave. SW. The location was an empty lot, and we had to rough in the cast iron soil pipe for the toilets and sink drains. It was really cold that November and the ground was so frozen that we had difficulty digging trenches for the soil pipe, so we brought in a jackhammer to break up the frozen earth. We followed the guidelines from the blueprints provided us by Wright's mechanical draftsman, and laid out and measured the 4 inch hubed cast-iron soil pipe for each of the eight apartment suites on the ground floor. The cast-iron soil pipe came in eighth foot lengths, and to cut it into smaller lengths we had a special tool called a soil pipe cutter made by Rigid Tools, who supplies many of the tools used in plumbing, pipefitting, and gas fitting trades. The soil pipe cutter had a 3-foot handle and a chain with circular cutting wheels, it was looped around the soil pipe and pulled tight, then the chain end was fastened to the handle by two pins then engaged in a slot in the handle. By pumping the handle, up-and-down the chain would tighten and the cutting wheels would dig into the surface of the soil pipe until enough pressure was exerted to cause the soil pipe to break off evenly where the cutting wheels scored the pipe. There was a main trunk line running down the middle where the apartments hallway would be to the outside, where it tied in to the city's sewer main. There was eight inlets four on each side of the main trunk that went in to the individual suites, at the end of these branches would be elbows and Y fittings to service the toilets and sink drains from the bathroom and kitchen. There would be cast-iron elbows that were joined together to form a 90° turn upwards for the toilet, and another one that ran up to the second floor, and to the roof for the purpose of venting the system. To fasten two lengths of soil pipe together the 4 inch end of the pipe or elbow was pushed into the base of the hub, then oakum a fibrous material made of hemp was packed in all-around the hub with a yarning iron, a tool that looks like a spatula with an offset handle that could pack the oakum tightly into the hub with the help of a ball pein hammer. Enough oakum was packed in the joint till there was about one half an inch room left at the top of the hub. We used a propane fueled stove to melt lead in a cast-iron pail, the lead came in 25 pound ingots that were poured in four 5 pound circular portions that were joined together, and a 5 pound oval handle to carry the lead with. With a hammer and a cold chisel the 5-pound pieces were cut into segments that were placed in the pail to melt. A cast-iron ladle was then used to pour the molten lead into the hub of the joints to make them rigid. Horizontal joints were easy to pour, but any joint vertical or at an angle required a running rope to do the job. A running rope was a length of rope made with asbestos above 20 inches long with a metal cap on each end to keep it from fraying, it also had a spring-loaded clamp on a short length of chain attached to one end of the rope. The rope was wrapped around the top of the hub, and the two ends were clamped together, this left a small triangular shaped opening to pour the molten lead into. The rope was taken off and then the joint was caulked with two special irons for this purpose, the inside caulking was like at an offset chisel with a curved blunt end that was pushed against the soil pipe on the inside of the joint, and a hammer was used to pack the lead down into the joint, another caulking iron in the outside one was used to caulk the joint at the inside of the hub. The lead did not seal the joint; it was the oakum that expanded when it was a contract with water from the sewage.

We spent a good three weeks finishing the ground-floor rough in of the plumbing. It had to be inspected by the City of Calgary's plumbing inspector, and approved before they could pour the concrete floor over it. The plumbing inspector lived in the Altadore district is name was Harry Ager; I had worked with his brother Vic Ager, who was the senior tinsmith at Ogden shops. Harry was a very conscientious inspector, and nothing got by him, he took a look at the plumbing rough in we had finished and laughed, he said it would all have to be redone, because there were no backwater valves. A backwater valve prevents flooding of the apartments on the ground floor if the city sewer backs up, and there was a good chance of this happening as 35th Ave was a low point in the geography of the district. If you think yarning, pouring and caulking oakum and lead soil pipe joints is a lot of work, try disassembling one. To do this you have a small narrow chisel you use to pick the lead out of the joint. This was an expensive mistake made by the mechanical draftsman at Wright's and delayed the job at least two weeks.

There was one other job I worked on involving soil pipe, it was on the old Massey Ferguson building located at 11 Ave. and 3rd St Southeast. I have attached a picture showing the building after it had been bought by Ribtor in the 1970s. The job we had to do was to install a new washroom in the basement of the building. We laid out an outline with chaulk on the basement floor, where the soil pipe would run. We then used a jackhammer to break up the concrete floor, down to the earth, where the soil pipe would run. The biggest job was to drill a hole through the 18 inch wall of the building to tie into the city sewer system we started by jackhammering from the inside, and then worked from the outside of the building. This building was built in 1915, and I was told that old concrete was really hard to drill through, they were sure right about that. From the outside. we worked in a ditch eight feet below the sidewalk, we put a barricade across the ditch and tried a rope to it on the other end we tied up the jackhammer at the correct height for where we were drilling. It was tough sledding, drill bits would get stuck in the concrete, and we would have to drill around until we had drilled out enough material to free the bit. We hammered away till finally, we broke through to the other side. Once we have a small hole in the wall everything went easy after that.

Talking about soil pipe, there is a plant in Calgary that manufactures it. It was called Anthes Imperial pipe plant, and was located north of the Ogden Shops yard. Its name now is Canron. In this picture, you can see on the left side supports for the crane they have there. The CPR has a spur that runs up between the crane supports, and gondolas full of scrap cast iron were spotted there. The crane has a magnet that would pick up the scrap iron and stockpile it till needed. The scrap iron was then fed into a furnace and melted; it would then be poured into molds for cast-iron soil pipe and fittings. At the time I started at the Ogden Shops. They were paying $5 an hour to work here, but it was a dead end job with no future.

Plumbing the “Wright” Way

Being out of work was new for me, and I had to find something to do in the mean time to pay for my room and board and other necessities of life. I had some money saved to tide me over for a while, but I knew it would not last forever. I had a friend named Keith who was a third-year apprentice in the pipe shop at Ogden, he was fed up with railway and wanted to find a job in his trade on the outside. I was with Keith when he went for an interview at a plumbing shop on McLeod Trail; it was called A.R. Wright, Plumbing and Heating Ltd. I sat out side while Keith went for his interview with the owner Art Wright, the interview went well and Keith would start as a second-year apprentice. Mr. Wright saw me sitting there outside his office and asked Keith if I was looking for work too Keith asked me and I said sure, why not. So I was hired on as a first-year apprentice plumber and gas fitter a start of a new career.

A Farewell to Ogden Shops

In the spring of 1966, I developed some health problems with rheumatoid arthritis; I ended up in the Calgary General Hospital for about three months. I was away from work for about five months total, and was covered by benefits from the Sun Life Insurance let the CPR provided us with as part of our collective agreement between the railway and the Sheet-Metal Workers International Association. The first few months I worked at Ogden I lived at home and road the Calgary Transit System buses to work, to do this. I had to get up at 06:00 in the morning have breakfast that my mother prepared, and walk three blocks to the bus stop on 33rd Ave. SW to catch the South Calgary bus Route 7 downtown to 1st St SW in front of the Hudson Bay Store and cross the street to catch the Ogden bus Route 24 that took me to the front gates of the Ogden shops. I learned from one of my coworkers Gary, who lived in Altadore of a carpool he rode in. Eric, who was a foreman on the Rip track, drove the car; he drove a 1959 Chevy and charged three of us a dollar a week to pay for gas. I'd tell you, this guy was really cheap, he had clear plastic seat covers to protect the upholstery, and in the cold winter weather you just about froze your butt off sitting on the seats, as he never turned the heater on. He would turn the heater on, only enough to defrost the windshield, he had some kind of perverted idea that if you used your heater the battery would wear out sooner.

I finally had enough of carpooling, and I moved to Ogden, a friend of mine who was a machinist apprentice lived at home in Lynnwood, and his mother and father, who worked as a machinist helper on the scrap dock, had room for a boarder. This was great way only lived about eight blocks from the shops so I could walk there in the morning in about 15 minutes. I never was a morning person, and remember going to work and being about a block away from the shop gates when the 08:00 whistle blew, also at this time the CPR's Dominion would arrive from the East. The Dominion was the CPR's second transcontinental train, it looked pretty sharp in it's CPR livery of the units in their color scheme of gravy, yellow, and Tuscan red, followed by the baggage car, day coaches, dining car, and sleepers all finished in Tuscan red. Unfortunately like me, this trains days were numbered.

When I started working at Ogden Shops in 1965. I was paid $1.35 an hour, Journeyman made $2.70 an hour. Tradesmen working in construction were making about $5.00 an hour. A case of beer was $2.75; cigarettes were $.36 for a package of 20, and $.45 for a package of 25. You could throw one dollar in your gas tank and drive around all night. My first car was a 1947 Dodge four-door sedan, when it wore out. I bought a 1955 Chevrolet, two-door sedan.

I had two years service in when it happened in November 1967, business was slow then on the CPR and this resulted in a reduction in staff. I had my two years, and I figured I would be safe from the layoffs, but I was wrong. It looked like our griever would have to work midnights in the hook shop, so he arranged it for me to get laid-off so he could stay on day shift in the locomotive shop. So in November of 1967 I left the service of the CPR due to a reduction in staff. The layoff looked like it would last for about three months and hopefully I would return then, but fate had other ideas for my future.

The Load Test

I've posted a photograph taken at the Load Test this was a stub track located between the North side of the Locomotive Shop and the Foundry. When locomotives were rebuilt at Ogden they had to go through extensive testing before they were released back to active service. In a complete overhaul, the locomotive diesel engine would be completely overhauled and rebuilt, on the electrical side. The main generator and traction motors on each axle received the same restoration. The locomotive was started up and brought out to the Load Test and tested under simulated load conditions, by the machinists and electricians. The 7070 was built by Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1948, and in this photograph taken in 1961 is in its Canadian Pacific block lettering and Tuscan red, gray, and yellow paint scheme. The locomotive Model number was DS4-4-1000, which classed it as a Diesel Switcher 4 Wheels on one truck and 4 Wheels on the other truck, and rated at 1000 Hp. I have seen a photograph of her in active service at Port Coquitlam, British Columbia in May 1975 painted in the CP Rail color scheme. In the picture the 7070 has all hatch doors open and the Machinist Duane on the front end would be checking for any leaks from the diesel engine block. The engine would be run through all eight-throttle positions for hour after hour. I remember going out there one day on an engine being tested that did not have all the sheet metal reinstalled in the locomotive cab, we finished our work and left in short order. I sure wouldn't want to work out there hour after hour with throttle in the eighth notch position.

I remember that they also did a road test, my best friend, Jimmy was a machinist apprentice and I went for a ride with him on a B unit one day. We traveled down to the north end of shops compound and out onto the yard lead that ran besides the shops. Jimmy had a flagging kit and stayed on the ground to protect this movement with a red flag, track torpedoes, and red fusees if necessary. B units have no operating cab, but they do have operating controls and the operator, usually a machinist foreman could look out the circular porthole window on the side of the locomotive. With the track clear ahead for three quarters of a mile the foreman could open up a throttle and see how locomotive performed going forward and backwards. This was a dangerous practice as there was quite a curve in the track and a yard movement, or a train coming in from the east could show up at any time. When the locomotive had passed all its tests it would be released to the shops at Alyth, and the switch crew from the yard would take the locomotive along with any other rolling stock lead had been released.

The switch crew started their daily duties inside the Ogden Shops there was a yardmaster who worked there and gave them their daily list of the duties they had to do. The crew consisted of a locomotive engineer, yard foreman, and helper. The duties were fairly light so the job went quite high on the seniority list. There was also a lucrative sideline they were engaged in, there was a working man's bar called the Shamrock Hotel in East Calgary and a bookie worked out of there. The working men at the shops like to gamble on the horse races, so there was different places around the facility, where a boilermaker, machinist, electrician, or carman working a job in a stationary location would collect money for the bets. While one of the crew on the ground would do the work required with the locomotive engineer, the other crew member would go around and collect all the money for the bets and would go to the Shamrock early in the afternoon to see the bookie and place all the bets. This had been going on for many years on tell the city police busted the bookie and the game was over.

The No. 1 Car Shop, Rip Track, and Farm

In this photograph on the left side we can see the steel framework of the No.1 Car Shop with some service cars in the foreground, they were probably being used for offices and lunchrooms for the workers.this shop also had a tin shop, where they did repairs on cabooses, and the other rolling stock that had sheet-metal. As part of my apprenticeship, after two years, I would've gone to work in this tin shop for two years. All the other apprentices would have to serve two years in the back shops such as Alyth in Calgary, or Nelson in British Columbia. In the middle we can see the fence on the eastern side of the property. And on the right side we can see the south end of the Planning Mill. The track, where the service cars are standing later became the Rip Track, Rip stands for "Repair in place" and was used for light repairs that could be done outside the Car Shop. The Farm is tracks in the yard north of the Car Shop; they were used for cutting up obsolete rolling stock, destined for the scrap yard. You can see this in the photograph of cars being cut up with a torch that I have posted above. I also posted a picture of a Royal Hudson heading for the scrap line. We use to go down to the Farm to salvage sheet-metal from some of the cars being scrapped, for projects we were working on around the shops to help keep the price down.

The Ogden Station and Hotel

Here I've posted a photograph showing the Ogden Station, which looks to me not much more than a sectionmen's bunkhouse with a train order signal on the roof. There is also an excellent view of the old Beanery and Apprentice School and the opening in the fence that became the main gate into the shops. at this gate was a square wooden structure where the CPR police worked out of they were armed with revolvers, and besides guarding the entrance to the shops, they made regular patrols of the compound when no shifts were working on the weekends, and holidays. When I first started hanging out in Ogden we walked down the CPR's main line a little further north from where this picture was taken and still standing was a derelict roadmaster's house.

In the second picture I have posted shows a view of the Ogden Hotel under construction, with two floors showing. The building was finished with a third-floor and became a popular place to stay for people living in doing business in the Ogden area. During World War I, the hotel was donated for the war effort and became a convalescent hospital bill about 1919. It then reverted back to a hotel owned by the Calgary Brewery who owned many hotels in Alberta to distribute their product. In 1935, the building was taken over by the Alberta Government and became a Single Men’s Hostel until around 1969 when a new Hostel was opened downtown, and the building was sold. It was then renamed Alyth Lodge and rented out rooms by the month; there was a pool hall on the main floor, with the restaurant and the back.

A funny thing happened at the sandblast:

Here is a funny story I must tell you a couple of friends of mine worked at Ogden in the 1970s. They had a job sandblasting the interiors of hopper cars; this was done outside the South of the No. 2 Coachshop. They had to climb into the top of the cars through a hatchway on the roof. There was a ladder that descended into the bottom of the car down there they would drag a hose with a steel nozzle on the end and open a valve to sandblast the interior surface of the car that would be coated with the residue of the product they carried, such as cement and fertilizer. One would sandblast, and the other one would stay out side to feed sand into the compressor. They would take turns doing this during their shift, changing off every two hours, one day Jess had a brilliant idea, why not tie the hose down at the top of the ladder turn on the nozzle, start up the compressor and let the hose do all the work. They tried it out the hose was swaying around like a serpent possessed, it worked great the two of them could then have a nap as they worked unsupervised and as long as their quota of cars were done for the day who cared. Then one afternoon, they awoke from their nap to find sand shooting out of the side of the car they were working on low wall of the car was made of steel 3/8 of an inch thick, what had happened was the hose got stuck in one of the rungs of the ladder and for two hours the sand was sprayed on the same spot, which eventually wore a hole through the steel. This was their last shift at Ogden.

The No. 2 Coachshop

Above is a picture of a No. 2 Coach Shop when it was under construction, to the east outside of the fence surrounding the shops you can see tents were the construction workers lived. It looks like there is a gate where the workers could access the construction site of the structure. The shop has 15 bays to work on the CPR's fleet of passenger coaches; the structure with the smoke coming out of its chimney is a temporary structure that was probably used by the construction engineers and draftsmen. To the east of this building and past the railway gondola to the end of shop, a transfer table was built. Coaches entering the shop came onto the table on the center track where the gondola is sitting, and from there the transfer table traveled on rails to any doorway, and the coach would be moved in to the shop for its overhaul. The coaches would be stripped of paint, and seats would be removed for reupholstering, and any other repairs would be done to the running gear and air brakes. The coaches would be repainted, and refurbished, and moved out of the shop on the transfer table to return to service. At the time I worked at Ogden, the passenger era was in its twilight, many passenger trains were abolished, for lack of business. The automobile and airlines had taken their toll on these trains, and many jobs were lost.

I have posted some pictures of a transferred table I took at Ogden, Utah in 1999. This transfer table was attached to a Southern Pacific locomotive shop that was about to be torn down, not much left just the rusted rails and tumbleweeds. The two small steam locomotives were being loaded onto flat cars and shipped to Arizona. You can see by the amount of wheels, and rails, this was a heavy-duty transfer table for the Southern Pacific's big steam locomotives.

The Powerhouse and Planning Mill Conclusion

photograph by Walter Kot

I have attached a picture of the Powerhouse that was taken in 1961; it shows the sheet metal pipe coming from the Planning Mill to feed shavings to the boilers. We worked in the Powerhouse doing maintenance; one job I remember was running an exhaust pipe from one of the compressors out the east wall of the compressor room. One day, our foreman Ed came up to me and my Journeyman Bob, and one other Apprentice named Rod. He took us outside of the tin shop, through the doors located at the middle of the north side of the shop. On the ground, beside the doors, was a sheet of metal door on the ground that opened up and there was a steel ladder that took us down to a tunnel. This tunnel ran underneath the Locomotive Shop to the south side, and northward to the Powerhouse it was 7 feet high and about 5 feet across. The tunnel contained an 8-inch steam pipe, a 5-inch water supply line, and a 3-inch airline from the compressors. The streamline was insulated with asbestos, and wrapped in cotton fabric. Our work assignment was to strip off all the old installation and renew it with new installation. We were given little masks made of plastic with renewable filters, and using a saw we cut through the old installation, and with a utility knife we cut through the cotton jacket around the installation. To renew the installation, we had boxes of new asbestos insulation that was profiled in the half circular sections to fit around the 8-inch steam pipe. We secured the installation with metal bands, and then wrapped the outside of the installation with cotton fabric that was glued and whitewashed. The first day we stripped and re-insulated about 30 feet of pipe. Our foreman, Ed came down the next day to see how we were progressing, he was quite surprised and did not expect us to have so much work done. So we took what he said, as a sign to slow down, which we did. We would wrap a few feet of pipe in the morning, and the rest of the day we relaxed. We had plywood boards that we set on top of the water line that ran about 18 inches off of the ground on the other side of the tunnel, there was a small concrete ledge that ran along the wall, so it made a perfect place to lie down. We also occupied our time by playing cards, reading books, or just sitting there shooting the breeze. We would come up for our half an hour lunch break, and told all our coworkers how hot and miserable. It was working down there. At the rate we went, the job took us three months to complete, this is the time that our foreman had been allotted to finish the assignment. The one thing I did notice on my mask at the end of the day, there were lots of small crystals of asbestos on the filter. That was over 40 years ago, and I am no worse for wear, my lungs are in great shape. There was one story we heard about the tunnel in the early years after the shop was built, there was an exit where we worked, but there was no way to get out on the south end by the electricians shop. They say there were workmen down there at that time. When the steam line burst, and there was no way for them to escape, when they were found after the steam was shut off they were cooked like chickens, so the legend goes.

The Powerhouse and Planning Mill Continued

Before I continue with the Powerhouse and Planning Mill, I would like to talk about a postcard. I found recently it shows an overview of the shops layout looking southward. In the middle of the card is the Locomotive Shop, and behind the Locomotive Shop on its left-hand side is the "L" shaped Tender and Wheel Shop. The yellow building in the middle would be the Pattern Shop, and to its right side is the Foundry. You can see the upright steel beams that support the Scrap Dock Crane to the West of the Foundry. The two small buildings West of the Foundry and Crane would probably be the Oil House that was used to store flammable material such as kerosene, varsol, and paint thinners. The other building might have been used to store red and yellow fusees, and track torpedoes that were used in flagging kits that were used on trains to protect The building west the Administration Building and Stores was the Beanery and Apprentice School, this building was sitting derelict when I started, and soon after, was demolished. The building in front of the Locomotive Shop I do not recognize, it was probably never built. The Planning Mill was built more in line with the Powerhouse. Looking East of the Water Tower Is the No. 2 Coach Shop where passenger coaches were rebuilt, and reupholstered. The building right of the Powerhouse outside the shops fence line is the Ogden Station, you can see a little westbound passenger train has departed the station and will be going into Calgary Station. The large building north of the Powerhouse is the No. 1 Freight Car Repair Shop.