On the way: priority train leads the way to NTC.

The letters of linear red tape are awkwardly composed.

The tape forms the letter "P." The letter may be found scattered on many of the hundreds and hundreds of vehicles at the Fort Campbell, Ky., railroad marshalling area.

Soldiers resolutely bring the marked vehicles forward to the rail loading docks.

The letter "P" stands for one thing: Priority Train.

These are the vehicles, trailers and howitzers that will be aboard the first of four trains carrying the 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile) to Fort Irwin, Calif. Priority Train is the first train.

"Top priority," says Penny Cacoulidis, Unit Movement Chief. "These vehicles are going on our Priority Train."

Heavily weighted with aviation, engineer and command vehicles, this is the equipment that will establish the division's first foothold at the National Training Center.

In the first week of November, hundreds of vehicles are lined up and ready to load on 234 CSX rail cars at Fort Campbell's Rear Marshalling Area. The four trains will be formed from Oct. 30 through Nov. 9.

Everything about the move has priority. The 2nd Brigade is the largest 101st Airborne Division element to attend the National Training Center this fiscal year.

From a transportation perspective, every Required Delivery Date must be met to ensure the division has every advantage in its training against the center's vaunted Opposition Force.

This operation is one of scores of massive rail equipment moves managed and directed every year by the Military Traffic Management Command.

MTMC's customer today is the division's 2nd Brigade, represented by Capt. Daxs Stadjuhar, the brigade's Assistant Operations Officer.

How are things going?

"Great!" said Stadjuhar. "The long and the short of it is that the individual units made good deployment equipment lists."

Aboard an open-roofed Humvee, Stadjuhar is everywhere at once with his NCOIC, Staff Sgt. Tony Cotton, watching for choke points.

Stadjuhar is getting multi-level transportation support.

In bright red shirts that serve as safety vests, Cacoulidis' loading team can be seen working throughout the site. The team's 25 members include train engineers, brakemen and documentation specialists. They are old hands. Fort Campbell has five big railroad movements a year, and many smaller ones.

Walking crisply along the tracks are Capt. Toney McDowell and Capt. Johnny Duncan, Army reservists with the 1190th Deployment Support Brigade, of Baton Rouge, La.

Wearing MTMC patches on their safety hats and uniforms, the soldiers are part of an eight-member team that is energizing documentation action.

The soldiers are multi-talented. They can be found working computers and handling countless cars of military equipment.

"We're proud to wear these MTMC patches," said Duncan.

The two reservists bring diversity to military occupational skills.

Back home, McDowell is a policeman.

Duncan, an independent writer-researcher, has just completed an unsuccessful campaign for mayor of his hometown of Amite, La.

Amid the clash of chains on metal, CSX railroad crewmen--Bobbie Brackett and Walton Russ--give quality assurance checks to the airmobile soldiers lashing down the equipment.

"We're getting it as right as can be," said Brackett.

Priority Train vehicles are ushered into a series of five checkpoints. The checks are careful, but the speed is pronounced. Move-Move-Move.

Vehicles are checked for environmental oil leaks. Documentation and proper tie-downs are validated.

Problems are quickly resolved at a nearby maintenance site.

The day grows long.

Scattered rain showers come and go. The rapid pace in the rail assembly area to put together the Priority Train continues unabated.

Soldiers in bright red safety vests guide vehicles out over long lines of empty flat cars. Always keeping a railroad-car length ahead of the moving equipment, two soldiers take turns guiding each vehicle forward, rail car to rail car.

An open Humvee rolls up a railroad car.

A ground guide pulls his fist down vigorously, signaling the vehicle to a stop.

The driver, Spc. Richard McKay, of Co. B, 2/502nd Infantry, climbs out.

Solidly built, McKay looks like a recruiting poster image l(or the troops of the 101st Airborne Division. His record seconds that look--he is a Marine Corps veteran of both Desert Storm and Somalia.

He looks like a good soldier to have in a tough situation.

"That's what my commanding officer says," said McKay.

As the vehicles are brought forward, a chain detail goes to work. Chains and clamps are used to weld the vehicles securely to the rail cars.

One of the working soldiers is Spc. Morgan Thurgood, a mechanic for the division's CH-47 Chinook helicopters.

Thurgood is a transporter's transporter. He is a member of the Fort Campbell chapter of the National Defense Transportation Association.

The association might be a good place to start looking for a civilian job, suggests Thurgood.

Is he going to California?

"No--I'm clearing for Korea," said Thurgood.

So it goes.

Four work days after it started, Priority Train is rolling on its six-day journey to California.

Members of the 101st Airborne Division are in a hurry: they have a rendezvous in the California desert with Opposition Force, and they intend to win.

MTMC will get the equipment of the warfighters to the National Training Center on time--and get it home, too.