If you take the Amtrak train from Lafayette to Chicago, you may meet two retired men who volunteer their time and sleep to herd passengers into the station and thence to the platform.  They were at their volunteer posts Thursday morning in the chilly pre-dawn dark.

Julius Walker is a retired letter-carrier from the US Postal Service.  He greeted passengers at the Big Four depot, encouraging them to come in from the cold and keeping them informed about where the train was.

The train went through Cherry Grove (now just a place name), then Linden, then Romney.  As the passenger train approached the neighborhoods on Lafayette’s southern fringe, Walker guided passengers to the elevator up and let them know about the other elevator down, for passengers must go up one elevator to the pedestrian bridge, cross over the busy tracks, then go down another elevator to the platform.

When passengers got off the down elevator and emerged onto the platform, Daniel Flavin greeted them and briefed them on the art of boarding a train:  staying away from the tracks and letting the conductors bring heavy bags up the stairs. The infrared lights over the shelter and benches cut the morning chill.  Flavin deserves some credit for this, for he designed the platform.

When Thursday’s train was at the station, Walker, having herded his charges to the second elevator, looked down from the bridge as they boarded the train.

 

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