Our Hometown
Warner | From Train Station to Print Shop
Clip | 5m 56sVideo has Closed Captions
Jeremy reflects on the vibrant life surrounding Warner’s beloved train station.
Jeremy recalls when Warner’s train station was the town’s heartbeat—from ski trains delivering city-dwellers to local rope tows, to the summer vacations that inspired a lifelong connection to the community. A story of railways, roots, and how a whistle once brought Warner together.
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Our Hometown is a local public television program presented by NHPBS
Our Hometown
Warner | From Train Station to Print Shop
Clip | 5m 56sVideo has Closed Captions
Jeremy recalls when Warner’s train station was the town’s heartbeat—from ski trains delivering city-dwellers to local rope tows, to the summer vacations that inspired a lifelong connection to the community. A story of railways, roots, and how a whistle once brought Warner together.
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The train station was the hub of the town.
It was the lifeblood.
It was the thing that when the whistle blew, everybody came running down to the station.
The old ski trains that used to come to town.
Right.
And they'd bring all the skiers out of the city, you know, up from Boston, the Boston, the Burlington Railway, railway would transport those skiers, you know, looking for that same kind of reprieve.
Right?
Looking to get away out into the wilderness.
There was a little rope tow and a ski hill right by the train station.
So you could get off.
You could go to the rope tow, you could ski.
There was little lodges and things in town.
But the train station was the hub of it.
Dick Brayshaw, the founder of RC Brayshaw & Company, used to come up to this area with his family and they would vacation up here, you know, every summer they would come up with the boys and, you know, he had, you know, fairly large family and would bring them up every summer out of, Long Island, New York.
And they'd come up here out of the city, get away from it all kind of thing, you know, the foothills of Warner.
And, they loved it up here.
And then, you know, back to the grind, back to work.
You know, he worked in the city, in the family, lived in Long Island, and, that was it.
Mom said, enough of that.
We're out of here.
New York in the 70s was a pretty, you know, rough place to be.
And and she said, nope, dad, this is no place to raise a family.
He was at the time, a foreman of a printing company.
And so, naturally, when he came up here, they said, where?
Where else do you want to be?
Then Warner, New Hampshire, you know, let's go where we love, you know, we love it up there.
That's where we want to spend all of our time anyhow.
And, little ol Warner down the road.
They had seen this dilapidated train station at the time.
Unfortunately, the train station had lived a few lives, had fallen out of use as a train station, and, was a bowling alley.
It was always kind of a hub in town.
It was kind of a funny place, you know?
And, they still had when the Brayshaws bought it, you know, at the time, it was totally out of out of use and in disrepair, the windows and things like that, you know, as you would imagine, you know, it had been several different things, but the the bowling pins and stuff like that were still there in the building.
All the little pin setters were in the building, and the Brayshaws had bought the building.
And actually shortly after they had bought it, somebody came along and knocked on the door and said, hey, do you still have those pin setters in here?
And, Dick and Fran said, yeah, yeah.
Why?
He says, oh, jeez, you know, I'd really I could use those.
And they said, okay.
And, they worked out a deal.
And actually, for the price of the pin setters, they got the building basically for free.
So that was kind of a neat thing.
And, it was really nice.
They used, you know, their own kind of sweat and equity to really fix the place up and put it in a couple printing presses, and they were off and running.
I went to school for graphic design.
I got my BFA in graphic design at Plymouth State College and, you know, after you coming out of school, you're trying to figure out, you know, what do I want to do?
I had worked at a little quick print, in town while I was going through school trying to help pay my way.
So I had a little something that I knew about printing, and, was looking in the paper back in those days.
You know, a lot of people probably might not look in the paper for jobs anymore.
You know, with all the technology and different programs and apps and everything else.
But I had found this ad for R.C.
Brayshaw and, you know, all the while that I went to college, I was thinking I would get a big design, you know, Mad Men style design gig somewhere.
You know, I'd be in the city for sure, you know, when I responded to that ad, I got the interview.
I sat down with Tom Brayshaw, then the now owner the son and, Fran and Dick Brayshaw at the time.
And, I said, gosh, when I pulled in, I can come to work here every day.
That's awesome.
You know, you if you pull up to the train station in town and, it's a little print shop inside, but it still looks just like the train station did.
And there's a covered bridge right outside, and there's the beautiful Warner River and all the wilderness around.
When I actually pulled in for my interview, Fran Brayshaw was outside pulling weeds in the garden, you know, and she greeted me in the driveway and brought me in.
And I said, you know, this isn't the high rise, but it's pretty good, you know?
And I really liked it.
Fast forward 23 years later, I've risen through the ranks at RC Brayshaw and became vice president.
And really loved it.
You know, it's given me that same safe harbor that it gave the Brayshaws all those years ago.
A place that I can grow and explore, you know, and a place that we provide now, valued service to the community.
And, of course, you know, nothing stays, stationary.
We're always moving and grooving and adding new equipment.
We've since grown from that little tiny train station, here in Warner to add more facilities in town.
And, since that time, another facility up in Lebanon, up by the airport.
And, really, we're we're an industry leader, you know, these days, with the equipment and the technology and, you know, to be in such a small town, you know, we really feel, there's an ownership, you know, and who you are and what you do in a small town.
And there's a responsibility.
And I think the Bradshaws have that sense of, cherishing a place, you know, that the place has done something right for them.
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Our Hometown is a local public television program presented by NHPBS