East of Leavenworth

BNSF Railway intermodal train from South Seattle to Chicago passing orchards near Cashmere, Washington.

It's been a surprisingly good first day of photography on Stevens Pass in Washington's North Cascades. I'm traveling with Robert Scott and Steve Eshom, who know the pass well. A warm front has left unseasonably warm temperatures across the region, and the rain came down in buckets this morning on the pass. In the afternoon we went east, into the orchard country along the Wenatchee River east of Leavenworth, Washington, where we found more favorable weather. BNSF's Scenic Subdivision was busy today, making for an eventful day of photography. The Great Northern's mainline hosts primarily intermodal traffic, and we saw several trains of double-stacked shipping containers, including this one near Cashmere, a South Seattle to Chicago Z-train, the hottest eastbound on the line.