Stampede has been handling as many as 18 trains per day lately. Mostly empties, but also a couple of eastbound manifests. If that traffic were sent east via the Stevens Pass and Columbia Gorge routes instead, BNSF operations in the PNW would become a horrendous mess. It took quite a few years (since its reopening) to get here, but the Stampede route is now performing like a second main line along the Columbia River, without having to carve away all that earth and basalt to do it. (As if the state of WA and environmental watchdogs would make such massive expansion along the more narrow and sensitive portions of the Columbia possible anyway.)