Technology Engineering World's largest steam locomotive heads out on tour Union Pacific's Big Boy No. 4014 will travel coast-to-coast in commemoration of the semiquincentennial. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. The world's largest operating steam locomotive is hitting the road--or tracks . Union Pacific's Big Boy No. 4014 is heading out on its first coast-to-coast steam tour to celebrate the United States' 250th anniversary . The first leg begins on March 29, when Big Boy and other historical passenger cars from Union Pacific's Heritage Fleet will travel from the locomotive's home base in Cheyenne, Wyoming, west towards California.

The scene was a stretch of railroad tracks in Lincoln Heights on Saturday: A blizzard of torn plastic wrappers, cardboard boxes and paper packaging attesting to a wave of rail car thievery that officials say has been on the rise in recent months. Several scavengers picked through the debris, hoping to find electronics, clothes or whatever valuables thieves left behind. "Everything comes on the train -- cellphones, Louis Vuitton purses, designer clothes, toys, lawnmowers, power equipment, power tools," said a 37-year-old man who declined to give his name. He said he comes to the tracks regularly and once found a Louis Vuitton purse and a robotic arm worth five figures: "We find things here and there, make some money off of it." Thieves are pilfering railroad cars in a crime that harks back to the days of horseback-riding bandits, but is fueled by a host of modern realities, including the rise of e-commerce and Southern California's role as a hub for the movement of goods.