Somewhere along the Denver-Cheyenne rail line, a strange yellow locomotive (Bumblebee in his new altmode) is driving spikes using a built-in, fully automated steam hammer. John Henry's crew, Brawley and Cletus, are favorably impressed, but Henry considers it a "smelly pile of bolts", and worries about man serving machine, rather than the other way around. Cletus makes a joke about how serving Bumblebee is not much different from serving Henry; Henry gets mad briefly, then decides to let it go. Meanwhile, the overseer of the rail-laying project, Vanflint, orders his assistant to find out where the yellow locomotive came from; he wants to order a dozen more. (Presumably so he can then fire John Henry and the rest of the human workers.)