Issue link: https://nebusinessmedia.uberflip.com/i/1512769
V O L . X X I X N O. X X V I I I D E C E M B E R 1 1 , 2 0 2 3 10 B U S I N E S S M A I N E B U S I N E S S M A I N E B U S I N E S S N E W S F RO M A RO U N D T H E S TAT E Custom Occupational Health For Your Custom Business Northern Light Work Health is here to be your partner in a healthy and productive workforce by working with employers to provide the most accessible and customized occupational health experience. Our services keep your people at their best. Our commonly requested services: • Work injury management • Testing services • Immunizations See a full list on our website: workhealthllc.org Phone: 1.844.975.4584 • Physical exams • Ergonomics • Fit testing B R I E F Charter coach firm VIP sold to NH tourism operator B y W i l l i a m H a l l V IP Tour & Charter, a for-hire bus service that began in Portland nearly 40 years ago and had been family-run ever since, now belongs to a New Hampshire company. Conway Scenic Railroad acquired the VIP busi- ness, including its fleet of 15 motorcoaches and vans, VIP said. Neither company would disclose terms of the transaction. In addition, Conway has an exclusive option to buy the one-acre property VIP owns in the Bayside neighborhood, at 129-137 Fox St., which serves as headquarters and bus depot. That purchase could happen "in the future at a time that works for all parties involved," said Jason Briggs, VIP vice president of busi- ness development. The railroad's plan "is to occupy this premier location for many years to come," according to a news release from Malone Commercial Brokers, the Portland real estate firm representing VIP. For the bus company, Conway Scenic Railroad is "the perfect match," said Lana Sawyer, chief financial officer and manager of VIP. Her father, Raymond W. Penfold Jr., started the business in 1985 with a single 32-year-old GMC motorcoach. Today VIP employs about a dozen people, and its vehicles range from 55-passenger coaches to a luxury van with leather seats for eight. Penfold died in 2016, but the business has con- tinued under the leadership of Sawyer and Penfold's wife, Pat Penfold, as president. Three other family members have served as shareholders. VIP will provide Conway a link between cruise ships docked in Portland and the railroad's excursion trains, which run from North Conway, N.H., through the White Mountains. The bus trips will take about an hour and be timed around the ships' arrivals. Conway hopes the seamless, scenic bus-train tour will attract some of 230,000 cruise ship passengers expected to come ashore in Portland next year. The integration of VIP's services with the train tours will allow Conway to offer cruise lines more competitively priced excursions, the company said. In addition, it plans to launch bus tours in Maine. "The business is scalable," Conway co-owner David Swirk said in an industry publication earlier this month. "Whatever it takes, we will make incre- mental investments to support it. I want to get to 1,000 [cruisers] a day or even more." Conway currently operates 25 vintage train cars, carrying 135,000 passengers a year through the New Hampshire forests and mountains, and has added four cars with a total capacity of 364 specifically for the cruisers. P H O T O / P E T E R VA N A L L E N VIP Tour & Charter, a for- hire bus service in Portland, has been sold to a New Hampshire scenic railroad company. It also has an exclusive option to now buy the land VIP occupies in Portland's Bayside neighborhood.