Thank you to all the knitters and crocheters who rode the 2007 Stitch ‘n Ride train!
The response to this year’s Stitch ‘n Ride completely caught us by surprise. There were nearly 400 knitters/crocheters headed to Santa Clara for Stitches West. Each year, this program has steadily grown, but we could not have imagined the response for this year.
Though many folks seemed to have a good time on board, we know there are some who didn’t. We are very sorry if you had a less-than-stellar time aboard the train, and sincerely apologize to those who had to stand for much of the way.
As you may know, Capitol Corridor does not require reservations for regular service, and after checking ridership figures for this train and our projections for the event, we thought there would be ample room for Stitches West attendees and other passengers. Last year, we had about 175 passengers, and we THOUGHT we had planned well for an increase this year by prepping 250 goody bags and requesting an additional car for our train. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case, and with nearly 400 passengers headed to Santa Clara, there ended up being several standees on board.
Most event planners would be elated at standing-room-only attendance, but not the case for us. We feel bad that some people couldn’t get a seat and had to stand. We also felt awful that there wasn’t anything we could do to fix it. We’ve since spoken with our operations team, they have taken note of Stitch ‘n Ride’s popularity, and they are committed to making the event run smoothly next year.
We have already started planning next year’s event train, and we promise that next year will be hugely improved!
For starters, we are already talking about having a DEDICATED TRAIN (just for knitters and crocheters) for next year’s event.
We will definitely require advance RESERVATIONS for everyone so that there will be adequate seating for all of our train-riding yarnaholics.
We also plan to have more STAFF. We clearly needed some help organizing the several groups and many more individuals who boarded at Sacramento. We will also have more staff ride along on board the train to help with distributing prizes and goodies.
The Stitch ‘n Ride program is one of our favorite events, and we are very proud of it. This program would not happen without the support of the knitting/crocheting community–it is the support of all the wonderful people we have met through Stitch ‘n Ride and the support of local yarn stores that make this event successful. To realize that we didn’t live up to our standards or yours, is so very disappointing to us. We missed the mark on this, but we will make sure this doesn’t happen again.
Though the train ride was not perfect, and our team was pretty swamped, we were delighted to see so many returning faces, and many new ones as well. We hope you were able to get some knitting done, and show off your current and completed projects to your pals.
We hope you had a great time at Stitches West, and we hope you will consider us again next year!
Thank you!
Capitol Corridor Marketing Team
railmail@capitolcorridor.org