Karen, I believe the Emeryville station is staffed full time, but there may be volunteers there in the form of greeters. I know the person who has been setting up the greeters program, but she said her program only applied to fully staffed stations.When I first heard of the situation at Salinas (I live in Seaside), I talked to Walt at TAMC about the idea of volunteers to open the doors when the attendant is off. At first he seemed interested, so I volunteered to see what I could find out.
I learned that volunteers who open a station when the attendant is off are called "caretakers." Caretakers are used at one station in Pennsylvania, and another in Arizona. I'm afraid I don't have the specific stations at hand.
I passed this and other information along to Walt, via voice mail. I hadn't heard back from him so I wasn't sure if he was still interested in pursuing this.
A few weeks ago I also made some calls to Amtrak to find out more about station volunteers. Eventually Kelli Tharpe from the Amtrak communications office got back to me. She said Amtrak was trying to get some volunteers into Salinas when the regular attendant is off, but the city of Salinas, which apparently owns the station, was concerned about liability issues and was reluctant to allow it. I countered that Salinas may have a liability problem if someone is hurt because they couldn't find shelter in the station.
I gave Walt's number to Kelli, and she was going to pass it along to the real estate department which was handling the volunteer program. They should have gotten ahold of you by now. In any event, TAMC and Amtrak should be working together on this, but from your post it appears that contact has not yet been made. If I can be of any help in facilitating this let me know, I want to to see this work!
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Trust God, love your neighbor, and never mistake opinion for truth.
-Mr. Toy
The Del Monte Club Car
[This message has been edited by Mr. Toy (edited 06-13-2002).]
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