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Duck-tour company without the duck boats goes out of business
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Woo-hoo! Fewer tour buses
Woo-hoo! Fewer tour buses clogging the streets.
Which also means fewer super
Which also means fewer super-sized vehicles with distracted tour-giving drivers endangering people on bikes, scooters and on foot. Win win for everyone!
Not quite
I'm guessing that the now jobless drivers, guides, ticket agents et al aren't feeling like winners.
Or... maybe they are now able
Or... maybe they are now able to find better jobs with better pay. Think before you comment.
Decent job
I used to work for a different trolley company, but the pay was actually pretty good. I managed to save several thousand dollars over the course of a year. The conditions often sucked, being outside in winter and in rain, but it wasn't intolerable at all. And most of the time was downtime, waiting for customers - I read so many books that year, it was wonderful.
You got paid to sit around
You got paid to sit around and read books much of the time? Well, good for you! Do you include that on your résumé? Not impressed. Weather conditions often suck for construction workers and they don't sit around reading books while on the job. And, I'm pretty sure you'd agree that their labor efforts far outweigh anything you endure, so spare me the sob story. The bottom line is this: distracted driving of over-sized vehicles is a menace on the streets.
What a stupid comment. Your
What a stupid comment. Your little Honda Civic is just as deadly as any vehicle on the road. Distracted driving is not automatic because you drive a trolley or duck. There are far more larger vehicles on the roads than those.
Reading comprehension
Fail.
FenRes
I'm guessing that woman on the scooter who DIED after being hit by a super-sized tour bus driven by a distracted driver who was narrating a tour instead of paying attention to the road doesn't even get the opportunity to not feel like a winner.
nice try
The woman on the scooter was hit by the company that's still in business.
That's just bs.....
That's just bs.....
fewer super sized vehicles for distracted pedestrians to walk into!
If you are talking about the Back Bay incident
It turns out the woman DID have the walk light. https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/07/21/duck-boat-driver-cited-cras...
Nope!
Nope!
At least their amphibious tours had a dedicated land guide
I took one of their harbor tours in July, and the driver/captain only narrated the water portion; there was a separate guide doing the announcing on land. I don't know if they did the same for the trolley tours, though.
No
Trolley drivers narrated the trolley tours. And the reason for the separate guide for the land tour actually has to do with US Coast Guard regulations - these boats went into the harbor and so were under Coast Guard Jurisdiction , which requires 2 crew personnel to be on the boat. Since they had to have 2 paid employees on board , they had the "mate" narrate the land tour.
Super Tours
Super Tours was owned by the company that owns the auto shipping business in Charlestown-wonder if that is still operational?
It's fine.
In fact, when I went by there this morning, there was a car freighter tied up in the Mystic.
Loading up a ship with cars as I type
http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-71.0/centery:42.4/zoom:14
That green ship (just across the Mystic from Admiral's Hill) is the MV Liberty Promise, a vehicle carrier bound for Casablanca Morocco.
So I assume that cars are still being shipped, yes.
Thanks
Good job of spot reporting!
No problem
Any excuse to geek out on that shipping site is a good excuse ;)
They have a mobile app, too.
They have a mobile app, too. ;-)
That shipping site is prime
That shipping site is prime waterfront real estate wasted on thousands of parked cars. Too bad they cannot move to a less prime spot someplace further out of town.
Soup R' Crackers
I heard the owners were changing focus to opening a Soup R' Crackers.
I heard they are setting up
I heard they are setting up their own version of the Freedom Trail, because they thought it wasn't historical enough.
Wonder how much they want for
Wonder how much they want for a surplus bulbous amphibious bus? Seems like just the thing for my secret plan to invade Long Island.
Good idea
Are you going to seize the farm from b.good and give it back to the previous tenant?
Or will I hoard all the
Or will I hoard all the produce for myself, keeping it in the vast commercial kitchens of the abandoned dorms and defending it with the batteries of Fort Strong?
Top Secret!
The owner of Diversified
The owner of Diversified Automotive is a billionaire who never gave a crap about the Super Tours side of his business. It was a lame excuse for a tax right off. He is retiring and the new head honcho does not want it so out it goes. There are a lot of unemployed people now so enjoy your celebrating at their expense. These were hard working, talented people. Have a heart for crying out loud. My prediction is that those "oversized" vehicles will be back. Someone will buy them. Mark my words.
Maybe...
I think someone will want the trolley side of the business so those will be back , and the harbor part of the duck tour is an attractive bonus to the trolley ticket (assuming they could still access the channel and ramp) but I don't think the full land\harbor duck tour is competitive with the other tourist venues already out there.
I always thought it was very
I always thought it was very deceptive to have a competing company to the original Duck Tours, but that sounded like it was the same, but better. If I were a tourist who bought a ticket to the Super Duck Tours without realizing it was a knockoff of the original, I'd be pretty annoyed.
Why? There have always been
Why? There have always been multiple trolley tour companies. There are also multiple burger joints, bars, pharmacies, supermarkets, etc...Why not multiple DUCKS?