This Up Coming Week..............Vermont

Buffalo21

Buffalo21

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It’s early Sunday morning, after a series of frantic phone calls from customers, contractors and the service scheduler, my planned week in the Binghamton, NY area has been realigned, now its Rutland, St. Albans and Newport, all in the state of Vermont. While the people are nice and the scenery is a lot like northern NY, I’m not really fond of Vermont. Logistically if your not basically in Burlington, parts and work supplies or almost non-existent. There are some isolated outposts like St Johnsbury, Rutland, Bennington, White River Junction and Brattleboro, but almost everything else is small villages of 3000 people or less. If you don’t have it with you, your screwed and unless your in Burlington or one of the outposts, UPS overnight does not function like it does in the rest of the country.

My company is based in the Albany area of NY, but probably about 40% of our business is done in Vermont. Being that I’m based in the Syracuse, NY area, it adds an addition 2-3 hours of travel time to most of the Vermont jobs, the thought of being 5-6 hours away from your next job site, at times is very frustrating. After all my yrs of doing ths kind of work, it seems that at one time I was a boiler serviceman, who drove from job to job to fix units, now at times I feel like a truck driver, who occasionally stops to fix a boiler.

So it back to hotel/motel living and living on sleazy diner food for the next 2 weeks.....Alas, its a job........
 
Just think how happy you'll be when it's done, and look forward to that. :)
 
Buffalo21 said:
It’s early Sunday morning, after a series of frantic phone calls from customers, contractors and the service scheduler, my planned week in the Binghamton, NY area has been realigned, now its Rutland, St. Albans and Newport, all in the state of Vermont. While the people are nice and the scenery is a lot like northern NY, I’m not really fond of Vermont. Logistically if your not basically in Burlington, parts and work supplies or almost non-existent. There are some isolated outposts like St Johnsbury, Rutland, Bennington, White River Junction and Brattleboro, but almost everything else is small villages of 3000 people or less. If you don’t have it with you, your screwed and unless your in Burlington or one of the outposts, UPS overnight does not function like it does in the rest of the country.

My company is based in the Albany area of NY, but probably about 40% of our business is done in Vermont. Being that I’m based in the Syracuse, NY area, it adds an addition 2-3 hours of travel time to most of the Vermont jobs, the thought of being 5-6 hours away from your next job site, at times is very frustrating. After all my years of doing this kind of work, it seems that at one time I was a boiler serviceman, who drove from job to job to fix units, now at times I feel like a truck driver, who occasionally stops to fix a boiler.

So it back to hotel/motel living and living on sleazy diner food for the next 2 weeks.....Alas, its a job........
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About 25 years ago, I drove for a trucking company that has big orange trucks. We were about the only company that would take freight north of CT. Because we had most of the contracts to haul paper out of New England. Most other trucking companies would have to factor in coming back empty in their costs. I do not know what the paper market is like now days, but I would bet there is a lot less from New England. Most drivers do not like to even go near NYC, or any part of NJ, due to the traffic & time delays, bridge & toll costs, which mean extra costs, or lower income, which end being the same thing.

I enjoyed driving in New England, but living in Pa, I hated the NJ/NYC part of the trip. Even the traffic in Boston was better.
 
Well, we have adapted over the years...

I live in St. Albans, currently work in Burlington and have worked in Newport for a couple of years.

Burlington is the main city in Vermont - and increases in population by about 20% when college is in session. You are right in that if it were not for Burlington, most of Vermont would be stuck in the 80s as far as amenities and logistics go.

Finding a place to stay or eat in Burlington is not a problem. But I would recommend going to Church St. if you want to see the wildlife and eat good food.

St. Albans is considered one of the larger towns in Vermont, +10K population, has a few good places to eat and really one good place to stay. Hampton Inn is walking distance to the restaurants in town. LaQuinta is driving distance. I recommend Twiggs, Jeffs Seafood or Mimmos all are literally around the corner from Hampton Inn. If you like Chinese or Sushi - Eastern Dragon is probably the best I've had around.

Newport is what we here in Vermont would call an outpost. It is due east from St. Albans and borders Canada. There is little to do or see there. If you are going to Newport from St. Albans, take the scenic route on 105 and you will go over Jay Peak and see some awesome views of Vermont, Canada and New Hampshire. If you are going to Newport from Burlington, you can take 15 out to 100 and still see some nice little towns along the way. If you take the route, there is a place called the Burger Barn in Jeffersonville that has probably the best burgers around.

The logistics situation mentioned above about paper is a curious one. What the big paper companies seem to have done is what everyone else has done. Consolidate and setup warehouses in the outposts and deliver from there. For example our steel and corrugate supplies come from White River Jct., VT warehouses. There is a box printer in Plattsburgh that does a ton of business in Vermont and delivers out of their Winooski, VT warehouse. Companies in Vermont have consignment agreements with companies who produce and ship paper, cardboard, steel, chemicals, etc. in the southern part of the state, NH, NY and MA. We place orders out of those warehouse locations and they refill based on usually quarterly forecasts. The big companies like this because it lets them fill their production schedules and it keeps us low volume consumers running in our smaller plants. As he world becomes more diverse and consumer choices broaden and deepen, I can only see this trend continuing. The big companies can justify a plant up here, so they have adapted to serve the smaller customers like us.

It's more expensive to produce and live up here. Most companies you see operating here are niche producers. You won't see widgets being made up here.

Vermont is definitely different than other parts of the country. It is primarily a service industry. Billboards are banned, townhall meetings and a fiercely independent streak in its citizens make it a pretty unique place to live. I grew up in Central Vermont in a town of 800 people, so I am extremely biased, so if this comes off as defensive, you now know why. But thought I would at least offer up some places for you to consider while you are here.

EDIT: I should add that the COVID situation in Vermont requires you to use a mask when entering public places.

Bryan
 
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How was your week?


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the schedule changed, it was Pittsford, Rutland, Barre and White River Jct., have to go back and finish Barre and Pittsford.
 
I was work for the state of Vermont, in Pittsford, all last week, will be there again to install the upgraded pieces and parts on Sunday, the rest of the week, I will be working in Canajoharie, NY (former home of Beechnut baby food), at a candy company.
 
Hopefully it don't snow yet.
 
4 hours from my house to the job in Pittsford, VT (243 miles), it’s Sunday, so I actually made it to the job before the facility maintenance man showed up( he has a ten minute ride), so here I sit and wait.
 
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