Whenever people or goods are moved from one place to another, transportation workers load it, haul it, tow it, truck it, fuel it, service it, and keep it rolling. Towboat deckhands don work vests and prepare the rigging for a midnight turn of grain and coal-filled barges coming up-river from Cairo bound for St. Louis; air traffic controllers carefully plot alpha-numeric readouts of traffic above D.C.'s National Airport; the yard engine at a midwest classification yard "shoves" a train of boxcars toward the hump as a brakeman cuts cars bound for several eastern destinations; a commissary cook fries sixty steaks for a flight from Kansas City to Los Angeles, while an inspector cautiously reads the oil on a 747 wing strut before buying the work of the day crew; and a sleeper team stops at White's for a cup of hundred mile coffee before making the South Charleston terminal with a load of 84 bills.

This year the Working Americans section presents the skills and lore found within the work days and nights of transportation workers.