Checking in
Jun. 2nd, 2017 12:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
necturusI'm driving myself batty dealing with all these radio stations, ours and other people's.
Springfield, Vermont, is not doing well. Once a prosperous industrial town whose factories produced machine tools, it is now depressed and decaying. The guy who formerly ran our radio station there was selling commercials for 17 cents apiece. Even if we sold out at that rate, we'd still be losing money. The guy running one of our other stations in a somewhat larger but still depressed town in New Hampshire said he can make a modest living at $3 per spot.
The Boston and Maine Railroad used to offer service between Boston and Montreal on three different routes; all three are abandoned today, with portions of each converted to bike paths. The Cheshire Branch, which ran from Fitchburg, a city in northern Worcester County, Massachusetts, to Bellows Falls, Vermont, ran parallel to the roads I often use to drive to Springfield, Vermont or Newport, NH. It last saw a passenger train in 1958, and was abandoned in the late 1980's. I keep thinking how much more pleasant my trips up there would be if the trains still ran. Bellows Falls, Claremont, White River Junction, and Randolph still have passenger service, but only from New York not Boston. The Randolph, Vermont station is about half an hour's walk from our radio station in that town. In the old days, I could have taken a train directly there from Boston's North Station via Manchester NH, Concord, Lebanon, and White River Junction. That train seems to have stopped running in 1965, and the rails were pulled up between Concord and White River Junction shortly after the infamous Guilford Transportation Industries acquired the B&M in 1982. Guilford changed its name to Pan Am Railways several years ago, and now uses the former airline's logo, which you can see on boxcars and locomotives, where it looks singularly out of place.
Meanwhile, every minute I spend behind the wheel of a car is a minute of my life wasted. And The Man in the Tin Foil Hat wants to defund Amtrak. Asshole.
Springfield, Vermont, is not doing well. Once a prosperous industrial town whose factories produced machine tools, it is now depressed and decaying. The guy who formerly ran our radio station there was selling commercials for 17 cents apiece. Even if we sold out at that rate, we'd still be losing money. The guy running one of our other stations in a somewhat larger but still depressed town in New Hampshire said he can make a modest living at $3 per spot.
The Boston and Maine Railroad used to offer service between Boston and Montreal on three different routes; all three are abandoned today, with portions of each converted to bike paths. The Cheshire Branch, which ran from Fitchburg, a city in northern Worcester County, Massachusetts, to Bellows Falls, Vermont, ran parallel to the roads I often use to drive to Springfield, Vermont or Newport, NH. It last saw a passenger train in 1958, and was abandoned in the late 1980's. I keep thinking how much more pleasant my trips up there would be if the trains still ran. Bellows Falls, Claremont, White River Junction, and Randolph still have passenger service, but only from New York not Boston. The Randolph, Vermont station is about half an hour's walk from our radio station in that town. In the old days, I could have taken a train directly there from Boston's North Station via Manchester NH, Concord, Lebanon, and White River Junction. That train seems to have stopped running in 1965, and the rails were pulled up between Concord and White River Junction shortly after the infamous Guilford Transportation Industries acquired the B&M in 1982. Guilford changed its name to Pan Am Railways several years ago, and now uses the former airline's logo, which you can see on boxcars and locomotives, where it looks singularly out of place.
Meanwhile, every minute I spend behind the wheel of a car is a minute of my life wasted. And The Man in the Tin Foil Hat wants to defund Amtrak. Asshole.
