Like Trains & People? The East Lansing Amtrak Station Needs You

Here's something you may not know: Even though the East Lansing Amtrak station has 70,000 people go through it every year—there's no staff. The station was de-staffed in 2017.

Plus—who knew? According to WLNS-TV, there's an organization called the Michigan Association of Railroad Passengers. Joshua Hamilton, Volunteer Program Manager and a member of that organization says, “The station here in East Lansing, has more riders per train than most of the Amtrak stations in the entire country.” But there's nobody being paid to help you out if you've never used Amtrak to get anywhere.

That's where Joshua comes in. As Volunteer Program Manager, he says the new program is looking for volunteers. People who will answer questions like:

"Will my train be late?"

"Do we HAVE to stop at Ann Arbor during football season?"

And, "why can't those poor people turn left at Trowbridge, instead of making that weird turn near the church?" (I may have made up some of those "typical passenger questions")

There will be an open house for potential volunteers from 6-8PM at the station on Friday, August 23 and from 10AM-1PM on Saturday August 24.

Here's the story.