Do you happen to know where the UP does its washing? It seems to me that units coming out of North Platte or the Chicago area are significantly cleaner than those on the west coast. As someone else observed, it would also seem as if the former SP yards have their own wash policy. Sure, most of the tunnels are out west, but the line down from Donkey Creek to the mainline has to be a very dirty proposition due to all of the coal dust.
Most of our major yards that have run through facilities have a wash rack like Ft. Worth, Little Rock, Kansas City, etc…
Yeah, but at least ours ran…
So they did. A clean SP engine is probably broken, or stuffed and mounted.