Photos from Duke Energy Carolinas Transmission Line Safety Day 2026
A yearly tradition for the folks at USA is attending Duke Energy Carolinas Transmission Line Safety Day, a multi-faceted event that has linemen and other Duke personnel moving from station to station, testing their skills and learning new ones throughout the day. Alongside several challenge stations which involved maneuvering large industrial machines to complete precision-based tasks, there were vendor tents and a training station for switchgear, the latter of which featured a hands-on demonstration of a Cleaveland/Price substation switch led by USA’s Chris Rogers. Over at the vendor area, USA was joined by representatives from Hastings Fiber Glass Products, Sherman+Reilly, Resilient Structures, Youngstown Gloves, and Polecrete Stabilizer.
Also of note was the lunch tent; this year’s lunch was a full on barbeque, sponsored by Youngstown Glove Company and prepared by USA staff and River City Construction staff. In all, it was a full day of cooking, training, chatting, and serving the lineman community at Duke’s training yard in New Hill, NC. Scroll down for an annotated collection of the best photos we were able to capture that day.
[Above] A small collection of photos capturing the setting of the Transmission Line Safety Day event. You can see the American flag hoisted proudly above the USA trailers from a 50ft Hastings Tel-O-Pole II, with Duke’s cooling silo billowing steam in the background.
[Above] The day before the event, the crew from USA and River City Construction were hard at work cooking the pork shoulder for the barbeque. Both smokers were setup onsite before and during the event, and our chefs repeatedly checked in on the prized pork throughout the morning.
[Above] This gallery contains miscellaneous photos snapped of attendees and vendors alike congregating around the various tents and booths. For the team at USA, these events are often a great opportunity to catch up with old acquaintances and share a story and a laugh.
[Above] Station 3 was a Cleaveland/Price switch training, featuring a substation toggle switch and hosted by USA territory manager Chris Rogers. New groups of linemen and other Duke personnel rotated through this station and others, spending roughly an hour at each stop.
[Above] Resilient Structures sent representative Brandyn Edwards with full demo trailer in tow. This gallery shows just a handful of the interactions between the Resilient Structures demo trailer and the many utility professionals who came by to learn about the impressive technology behind RS’s composite poles.
[Above] Ryan Keitel, Chris Rogers (both USA), and Brett Burton (River City Construction) manned the food preparation station of the lunch tent. Sponsored by Youngstown Gloves, this feast was comprised of smoked pulled pork, buttered potatoes, corn on the cobb, baked beans, potato salad, iced tea, banana pudding, and chocolate pudding cake.