Description: The last passenger train departed Keene, New Hampshire nearly sixty-five years ago and all of the railroad branch lines that once threaded their way through the river valleys and rugged hill country of the Monadnock Region felt their last trains almost forty years ago.
Brief description:
Richard "Dick" Richards grew up in a railroad family in Greenfield, Massachusetts--his father was a freight and passenger conductor for the Boston & Maine Railroad. After high school, he enlisted in the US Air Force and served as a security policeman in Southeast Asia, the continental United States, and the Republic of Korea. Upon leaving the service, he worked briefly as a trainman and conductor for the Boston & Maine before moving to Keene, New Hampshire, and embarking on a 30-year career with the Keene Police Department. He earned a BS in management from Franklin Pierce College and retired as a lieutenant before rekindling his interest in railroads and their history, which he pursued as a volunteer at the Historical Society of Cheshire County. A member of the Boston & Maine Railroad Historical Society and the Railway and Locomotive Historical Society, he resides with his wife in Swanzey, New Hampshire.