Volunteers Wanted

There is a lot of material of interest to train travelers that needs to be gatherred and placed onto web pages. I can certainly use any help that you are willing to offer. If you know how to do HTML design or how to manipulate photographic .GIF and .JPG images, I can really use people with those skills. If all you know how to do is to type text into your computer, I can even use those skills!

Placing information on-line is a very time consuming process and the amount of information that I can offer is limited to the amount of spare time I have available. With additional volunteers, much more information can be placed on-line.

I will list some of the areas of specific help below as I think of them. Send email to me at steve@trainweb.com if you would like to volunteer.

• I would like to place all of the information from the various Amtrak "Route Guides" on-line. If you can design HTML, I can give you a copy of the general outline along with some of the "Route Guides" to be placed on-line. If you have a scanner, that may speed up the process. If you don't know HTML, just having someone scan or type in the text would be a great help. I can add in the HTML commands after the text has been placed into files.
• I have used a commercial service to place a submit the http://trainweb.com web address to hundreds of Internet Directories and search engines. I could use volunteers to check all the existing printed and online internet directories and send e-mail or snail-mail to all of those that have not listed the TrainWeb site and ask them to please list this site. I could use volunteers to submit the http://trainweb.com web address to all those search engines where it is not found. Please do not send e-mail to me telling me of directories or search engines where http://trainweb.com is not found. Chances are that my commercial service has already submitted the address to that directory or search engine and it just hasn't been posted yet. However, some direct mail from you to these directories and search engines can sometimes help push to get this site listed sooner!
• If you run across any web sites, magazines, or books that review web pages, please do submit your nomination for http://trainweb.com! I could also use volunteers to write letters to both magazines that cover the Internet industry and magazines that cover the train industry and let them know of the existence of the http://trainweb.com web site. Also, write to authors of books about trains, especially the authors of books that include a list of rail resources, and let them know about the TrainWeb site.
• From my research, I have found that it is possible to process the photographs in my photo gallery and to greatly reduce the size of the image file without reducing the quality of the photographic image. However, this is very time consuming. If you have expertise in this area and would like to volunteer some time to reduce the size of image files in my photo gallery, we would all appreciate your effort to reduce the download time of these photos!
• Someone is needed to follow various events in the passenger rail industry and post them to the section on "Upcoming Events". For example, I missed the opening of the new Portland, Oregon station. If one of you keeps up with these events, many of us would appreciate it if you could keep the rest of us up to date.
• My area of interest is passenger rail travel, especially Amtrak and eventually VIArail in Canada. I don't ever expect to develop that intensity of interest for rail travel in Mexico, Europe, Japan or other parts of the world. If you would like to cover those ares with a level approaching the intensity that I have done here for Amtrak, then please let me know! I could set up a sub-page for you under trainweb.com/travel and you would have autonomy in developing an entire web site for your particular area of interest. The same also goes for freight railroads, excursion railroads, and model railroading. I only have a passing interest in these other rail areas and will be relying on volunteers to take much of the responsibility for supplying information for those areas.