In this special episode celebrating the 2026 National Lineman Appreciation Day, Line Life Podcast Host Amy Fischbach shares favorite clips from past podcast interviews featuring lineworkers recounting why they joined the trade, unforgettable storms and the camaraderie that keeps the lights on.

Listeners will hear voices from across the industry — from apprentices to veterans — with stories of resilience, community response to disasters and the personal sacrifices line workers make to restore power.

If you have stories to share from the 2026 National Lineman Appreciation Day or would like to be a guest on a future episode of the Line Life Podcast, email Amy Fischbach, Head of Content for T&D World.

For more than four decades, the International Lineman's Rodeo has brought the line trade together for camaraderie and competition. Last October, the Rodeo Week drew a record crowd of more than 5,000 attendees. Apprentices and journeymen lineworkers competed in the Pole Climb, Hurtman Rescue and mystery events that showcased safety, skill, tradition and teamwork.

This Line Life Podcast episode revisits top winners, memorable moments and special events ahead of the 2026 competition. Read the full article from the December 2025 issue and check out more coverage on the T&D World website.

You can also learn more about the 2026 International Lineman's Rodeo, slated for Oct. 14-17, 2026, in Kansas City, by subscribing to our Lineman Life or Lineman's Rodeo News enewsletters or by visiting the International Lineman's Rodeo Association (ILRA) website.

Because lineworkers are heroes and first responders, they have been celebrated in songs, books and movies. For this episode of the T&D World Line Life Podcast, we are featuring an interview with William Wister Haines, Jr., the son of the author of Slim and the companion book, High Tension.

During this episode, William shares the story of how his father's book, inspired by his work in the line trade, became not only a national bestseller, but also a Hollywood movie starring Henry Fonda. Years later, he continued his father's legacy by bringing both books back into print. He now personally inscribes and ships copies to training programs and lineworkers nationwide. To order a copy of the books, go to his website.

This episode in our ICYMI series for the T&D World Line Life Podcast tells the story of the Wataynikaneyap Power Transmission Project. This $1.9 billion CAD Indigenous-led partnership connected 17 remote First Nations in northwest Ontario to the provincial grid, replacing costly diesel generators with clean, reliable electricity.

Learn how 24 First Nations, Fortis and partners overcame remote logistics, governance challenges, and the pandemic to build 1,800 km of transmission lines and 22 substations, creating local ownership and lasting community benefits. To read the story, which appeared in the November 2025 issue of T&D World magazine, visit the website.

Also, if you are working on an interesting transmission, distribution or substation project, we'd love to hear about it. Email Amy Fischbach, Head of Content for T&D World and host of the Line Life Podcast, with your project photos and description, and she will help you to share your story in T&D World magazine.

In this episode of the T&D World Line Life Podcast, we are highlighting Shawn Becker, a first-year lineman student at Ozarks Technical Community College and a member of the U.S. Army National Guard. Shawn shares how he discovered the line trade, got involved with the training program and made connections during the International Linemen’s Rodeo week.

Listen for stories about military service, the lineman community and brotherhood, safety and wellness in the trade and Shawn's goals for a future that balances career opportunities with family life.

In this ICYMI episode of the Line Life Podcast, we are sharing the narrated version of an article from the November 2025 issue of T&D World magazine on how Ameren Illinois is using new technology to inspect aging sub-transmission conductors and prioritize line rebuilds.

The utility manages more than 45,000 miles of power lines supported by about 1.3 million utility poles, including 2,000 high-strength composite poles. Ameren Illinois adopted the LineVue device to perform comprehensive, cost-effective inspections of conductor spans, improving accuracy over traditional visual methods. LineVue technology enables remote, real-time assessment of conductor health, identifying issues such as rust, pitting and broken strands on energized lines up to 500 kV.

To read the full story, go to T&D World's website.

In this episode of the T&D World Line Life Podcast, Host Amy Fischbach interviews Zane Stephenson, a student in the lineman training program at Metropolitan Community College–Kansas City. Zane shares his training experiences, early memories of his grandfather's time in the trade and what drew him to line work.

The conversation highlights safety lessons learned at the International Lineman's Rodeo's Safety and Training Conference and Zane’s future plans, including contractor apprenticeship, storm response and his motivation to give back to his family.

In the electric utility industry, lineworkers often retire with years of experience and take that knowledge with them. Eversource discovered a way to bridge the knowledge gap by overhauling its electric and gas training using multimodal digital tools, e-books and mobile apps. This episode of the Line Life Podcast features a narrated version of the article "Eversource Advances Workforce Training" from the November 2025 field-focused Electric Utility Operations section of T&D World magazine.

This audio story outlines the utility's plan to deploy roughly 85 custom training applications by 2026–27 across core programs like overhead and underground electric, substations, gas maintenance, corrosion and field communications. The episode highlights how tablet-delivered, interactive content preserves institutional knowledge, supports different learning styles and improves safety through virtual practice. It also provides scalable, just-in-time training to meet growing workforce demands and close the experience gap.

For more information, read the article on T&D World's website.