Where did all the industry go?

The Boston and Maine historical society presented a talk and slide show in Plymouth NH yesterday.  I drove down to see it, the sun was out, the leaves were bright.  Pleasant drive.  The presentation was in the former B&M passenger station in Plymouth, now a senior center.  Presenter was Dwight Smith, serious railfan and long time B&M employee, with slides going back to the late 1930's.  Subject was rail operations in northern New England.  Lots of slides, diesels, steam, stations.  Long freight trains, mostly boxcars, going to all sorts of places that no longer have rail service at all.  Berlin, Lancaster, Colebrook.  At each vanished rail line Dwight would mention the names of the industries and the traffic they used to produce.  For instance Berlin used to generate 11000 carloads of freight a year. 
   Thinking about those long trains of boxcars, made me think of all the jobs needed to create the product to fill them.  For some reason,  our northlands has de industrialized since the 1950's.  The paper mills are closed, the bobbin mills are gone, the furniture factories are gone and nothing has replaced them.  Some of the business has gone to trucks, milk for example, but most of it has just gone up in smoke.  Teenagers growing up today look to leaving the state to find work when they graduate high school. 
   New Hampshire needs to work on getting more industry.  Right to work would help a lot.  So would reducing the business tax. 

Walt Havenstein vs Maggie Hassan

They were on TV last night "debating".  Both of 'em looked good, sounded good and talked past each other.  Neither of them made a newsworthy gaffe.  Half the reason for watching candidate debates is to enjoy the blood spilled on stage when one of 'em says the wrong thing.
  Walt missed an important point on right to work.  We need right to work to get investment, factories, assembly plants, in short jobs.  Fact of life.  Corporations won't invest in a state that is not right to work.  They do invest in right to work states.  Which is why Sturm Ruger is expanding in North Carolina, and Boeing is now building 787s in the same state.  If NH were to vote in right to work, we would be the ONLY right to work state in the whole northeast.  That would draw investment dollars from the moon.
   I know that right to work is tough on unions.  It's much harder to collect dues when you have to ask each man to write you a check.  It's easy street when the employer deducts dues from the paychecks and passes the money on to you.  But only 7 percent of NH workers are unionized, we ought to be able to vote in right to work in the legislature.  And, unlike last time, when democratic governor Lynch vetoed right to work, Walt would sign it.
   The other big miss.  Both candidates admitted that NH is suffering a loss of young people.  Maggie said this was due to a lack of educational opportunities and segued into more money for UNH.  Walt didn't contradict her.  Neither came out and said that young people leave NH 'cause there are no jobs for them here.  My own son had to travel to North Dakota to find work.   Right to work would bring us some jobs.