SALT LAKE CITY — The world’s largest steam engine will spend a little more time in its old home than initially advertised.

Union Pacific on Tuesday unveiled dozens of more stops that the Big Boy No. 4014 will make across the West between March 29 and April 24, including three extra stops in Utah.

The historic 133-foot-long, 1.1-million-pound locomotive will make stops in Morgan and Salt Lake City on April 2, as it moves west toward California. It will pass by Morgan again on April 20, following its two-day display in Ogden, which was announced last month.

All of the Utah stops are part of a transcontinental tour that Union Pacific is putting on in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding. It’s the first time that the train will make a cross-country tour, and it will be by “No. 1776 — America250” and another commemorative locomotive.

Big Boy No. 4014 is the only remaining Big Boy locomotive that remains in operation of the 25 that were built in the 1940s to help haul heavy freight loads through the Wasatch Mountains. Seven others are still in existence but are retired.

It last made a stop in Utah during a Western tour in 2024. Spectators are urged to remain at least 25 feet from all railroad tracks, including drones, when the train rolls through the state in April. Drivers are also urged not to pace the train for a better view.

EAGLE MOUNTAIN, Utah (KUTV) — The Utah Department of Transportation has planned a major groundbreaking for what it calls the first east-west expressway corridor in Utah County.

The plan is to build a six-lane freeway to connect I-15 and Mountainview Corridor, with three lanes in each direction and making 2100 N a frontage road on both sides.

“You almost hate to see it grow, but when it does grow, you like to see reasonable solutions for people’s problems,” said Michael Crofts, resident of Lehi.

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Drivers in northern Utah County are no strangers to the 2100 N congestion come rush hour.

“‘Cause one of the big things is that not a lot of jobs are out in Saratoga and Eagle Mountain,” Crofts said. “They’re out here in the East and this part of the valley or North and there does need to be a better way for people to get around.”

To ease traffic flow in the area, UDOT is planning to put the new expressway in the patch of grass between where 2100 N runs now.

“This is one of our biggest projects this year,” said John Gleason, public relations director for UDOT.

It’s about a three-mile segment and will cost roughly $621 million dollars. It will include two bridges—at 3600 W and 2300 W—and have freeway-to-freeway interchanges, so traffic won’t have to stop.

“Right now, there’s not a lot of great options East-West out there; and so by building this freeway, you’re going to improve not only the East-West connection, but you’re going to alleviate some of the traffic on the North-South roads there as well,” Gleason said.

2100 N will stay open during construction, according to UDOT.

“Any short-term issues that you have with construction, we’re hoping that that payoff is going to be great things for everybody that lives and works out in the area,” Gleason said.

“It’s kind of a bittersweet thing because it does feel almost overcrowded, but at the same time it’s one of those, well, but if we build better infrastructure, will it feel less crowded?” Crofts said. “But the bitter part is that they’re like, oh, our little tight-knit community is suddenly grown into a city.”

The groundbreaking is scheduled for March 18th, and UDOT estimates they’ll be building the expressway through late 2028.

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SALT LAKE CITY — Measures to turn swaths of public land over to local entities were met with widespread opposition last year, but a Utah legislative committee agrees it could yield good things.

Outdoor recreation groups and others say they’re concerned it could be a slippery slope leading to the loss of public land.

Members of the House Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Committee voted unanimously on Monday to favorably recommend HCR14, which urges Congress to allow “limited use of unreserved lands near existing communities and infrastructure for moderate income housing.”

Unlike Utah’s effort to secure 18.5 million acres of Bureau of Land Management land or Utah Sen. Mike Lee’s push to include the sale of 0.5% to 0.75% of public lands in Utah and 10 other Western states in a federal budget bill, each of which failed last year, HCR14 supports a “much smaller ask” and a particular type of federal land, said Rep. Raymond Ward, R-Bountiful, the resolution’s sponsor.

The idea was sparked by a conversation with Santa Clara leaders, who are dealing with southwest Utah’s population growth near federal land, but it’s a challenge that many other Utah communities face, he and members of the committee added. That’s contributed to some of the state’s housing affordability and other challenges.

“At least some portion of this difficulty is that land is a lot more expensive than it used to be,” he said. “You can’t make any more land, but there is some land that is right close by us, but because of the way it is designated federally, it is not available to be used for housing.”

Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner announced last year that they formed a joint task force to explore using “underutilized federal land” for housing to increase supply and potentially lower costs. Utah’s resolution, if passed, offers federal leaders “one more thing in their hand that they can use as a tool” when they have these types of land policy discussions in Washington, Ward said.

However, efforts to tinker with public land have been unpopular across all spectrums thus far, especially among those who recreate outdoors. Brett Stewart, president of the Utah OHV Advocates, asked if there are ways to trade state and private land in exchange for public land, so that the public doesn’t lose access to the land.

“Once you start doing this, you start handing it off … it’s going to do the domino effect,” he said. “It’s going to get easier and easier and easier, and now we’ve got that reputation that we’re selling off our public lands, which we’ll never, ever be able to touch again once it’s privatized.”

Housing is an important issue, but there’s a “huge lack of trust” following last year’s effort to sell land off land, said Kael Weston, of Salt Lake County.

Members of the committee agreed that it’s a complicated issue, which could require tighter language in the final resolution to avoid confusion, said House Majority Leader Casey Snider, R-Paradise.

“I think the intent is appropriate. I’d like to see it move forward, but I’m wondering if we could just have a conversation,” he said.

Ward acknowledged that it could be nice to clear up any concerns to reassure the public that the resolution isn’t seeking “a lot of other lands” that should remain in the public’s hands.

Others on the committee said land swaps and other types of agreements can be beneficial for both sides of the conversation. They can produce “win-wins” that support conservation and housing development needs, added Rep. Doug Owens, D-Millcreek.

“I think it’s a great resolution. It’s not in the far distant past where this used to happen more,” he said.

The resolution now heads to the House floor for a wider vote.