DCHP-1 Online
extra gang 
in railway construction, a gang of laborers employed for various kinds of heavy work, usually involving road-bed repairs, replacement of rails or ties, and other work not handled by the section crew.
- 1923 (1926) He had all the ties hauled up the grade the night before, and he brought up an 'extra' gang of men.
- 1927 There was what was called an Extra Gang there, employed upon shovelling gravel out of a hillside into dump-cars that took it away to fill in gulches under trestle bridges.
- 1954 . . . the speech of the Boukovinian homesteaders made constant reference to their experience on the extra gang.
- 1966 I was a gandy-dancer on the extra gang lifting and reballasting the main line in the McAdam, N.B., subdivision.
- 1923 (1926) He had all the ties hauled up the grade the night before, and he brought up an 'extra' gang of men.