Volunteers Wanted

TrainWeb has a lot of information, photographs and links of interest to the rail community that have not yet been posted online. We need volunteers to help sort, process and post this information to TrainWeb.

Some of the volunteer tasks can be done by people at their own homes. Other volunteer tasks require people that can come into our office for a few hours each week. Our office is located upstairs in the Fullerton Amtrak Station (with windows that overlook the station platforms and tracks).

Most of our volunteer positions require that you have a computer and can put HTML code into documents. If you don't know HTML coding, you can pick up a book on how to do it at almost any bookstore or computer store. We use the most simple of HTML coding at TrainWeb, just enough to create headings, paragraphs, lists and links. From an HTML book, that would take a day to learn at most. You won't need to use any of the advanced HTML commands and do not need to learn any more than just the information in the first few chapters of an HTML book. We will also provide you with free FTP software and a free web account at trainweb so that you can upload your work to TrainWeb, and even download, modify and re-upload information you have previously posted.

Below you will find two lists of available volunteer assignments. One is of tasks that can be done at your home and the other is of assignments that need to be done at our office. If you would like to volunteer for any of these positions, send e-mail to me at: steve@trainweb.com. If you would like to volunteer, but are not interested in any of the assignments listed below, still send me e-mail. I'll let you know as other needs arise and you can review each one to see if you are interested. Let me know if you are interested in working from home or at our office.

Note: These are UNPAID volunteer positions. The tasks involve helping TrainWeb provide information of value to the rail hobby and travel community and will not involve any work on our commercial pursuits. Although the positions are unpaid, TrainWeb can provide volunteers with free web accounts on our server that may be used for almost any legal non-commercial purpose.

Here is a list of the current volunteer assignments available that can be done from your home (or from our office):

• A volunteer is needed to look through all of my travelogues, especially for the last year, and look for the radio frequencies used along the segments of each Amtrak route. At some point I started keeping track of the radio frequencies used by Amtrak along each segment of each route. I would like to post a summary of these frequencies for each segment of every route. This volunteer would have to look through each of my travelogues, extract the radio frequency information, and then create HTML pages with a summary of this information for each route.
  
  
• We have a LOT of Amtrak related information that needs to be typed or scanned. A basic knowledge of HTML is needed to code for paragraphs, titles and lists. So far, we have not used a document scanner on any of this material but have just been typing it in. Since scanned documents need to be corrected and then coded for HTML, I'm not sure it wouldn't be faster just to type them in than to scan them. The information to be typed is very useful to Amtrak travelers and is not copyright material. These materials include the very detailed Amtrak Route Guides. Thus, one of the tasks that we need done that can keep a lot of volunteers busy is a lot of typing (plus inserting HTML coding into those documents)!
  
  
• TrainWeb receives a few travelogues each month from readers. I like to post these travelogues at TrainWeb. You will find them under "http://trainweb.com/travelogues". To do this task, you need to have some basic HTML skills. The travelgoues usually need to have HTML code added to them and sometimes need to have the paragraphs aligned left. If you accept this task, I'll forward the travelogues to you which usually arrive via e-mail. You will then save the e-mail to your local disk, put in the HTML code, and then upload it into a special web account that I will set up for you at TrainWeb.
  
  
• A few requests are sent to me each week inquiring about rail travel information. People want to know how to get from one city to another city by Amtrak. I try to respond in a timely manner to these requests, but this is not always possible. One or more volunteers are needed to be the "front line" to handle these requests. As a start, you will neet the "Amtrak National Timetable", the "Amtrak Northeast Timetable" and the "Amtrak Travel Planner." You can either pick these up from your local Amtrak station, call 1-800-USA-RAIL and have them send them to you, or I can send a set of them to you. Before you answer anyones request for information, you should visit the "http://trainweb.com/routes" page and read everything that is posted about the routes that they will traverse. This is where you will pick up unique insights about the routes and trains to pass on to the traveler. Without that additional information unique to TrainWeb, they could probably get all the help they need by just calling 1-800-USA-RAIL. You can even give them a really close ballpark figure about what their trip will cost and even check the availability of reservations by using "http://reservations.amtrak.com". If the person is ready to make their reservation, you could even pass them over to one of the Travel Agencies that we work with that has an expertise in Amtrak travel. No promises, but there is even the possibility that we might be able to arrange some small "finder's fee" for those that book travel through them. The reason we can't pass these rail travel requests directly to the travel agencies themselves is because of the number of people that like to do "armchair rail travel," but never make an actual reservation. Since travel agencies earn their income from bookings, they are a bit fearful they might spend a lot of their time doing research without earning any income for their effort. If you are doing this research just for fun, to learn more about Amtrak travel yourself and to be helpful to the visitors to TrainWeb, then you don't need to worry about whether these people actually ever do make a reservation.
  
  
• There are many rail events throughout the year. I'd like to post as comprehensive a list of these events at TrainWeb as possible. Thus, TrainWeb needs a volunteer to find and post these events. HTML coding experience would be very helpful or willingness to learn some basic HTML. I will forward magazines to you that list upcoming rail events or might even enter subscriptions to such publications in your name to be delivered to your home address. You will need to enter the events into a special web account that will be created for you at TrainWeb. Also, readers often submit notice of rail events. Those email messages will be forwarded to you.
  
  
• (This position has been filled): New and updated web addresses of other railroad related web sites are submitted to TrainWeb daily. We need someone to check, sort and post these links to TrainWeb. A basic knowledge of HTML or web page design would be helpful, but is not mandatory.
  
  

Here is a list of the current volunteer assignments available that need to be done from our office in Fullerton, California:

• We have well over 3,000 photographs in the TrainWeb database. We are months behind posting these photographs to the web. We need someone to come into our office to prepare and post these photographs. Preparation involves using PhotoWorksPlus to convert the photos to a 100% JPG file, a 50% JPG file, and a 10% JPG thumbnail file. An HTML file then needs to be made that integrates the photos with text labels that describe each photo. Experience with creating HTML web pages would be very helpful, but expert knowledge of HTML is not necessary. (It is possible to do this from home, but you would initially have to come to our office for us to explain how to do this task).
  
  

If you are interested in any of the above volunteer positions, please send e-mail to me at: steve@trainweb.com. Be sure to specify which position you are interested in. I'll be looking forward to your e-mail!

Steve Grande
steve@trainweb.com