by Elrond Lawrence/photos by the author
On November 11, 2026, one hundred years will have passed since U.S. Highway 66 was commissioned, the creation of a committee of federal and state highway officials. Their leader, visionary businessman and politician Cyrus Avery, saw a need to unite a ragged patchwork of roads between Chicago and Los Angeles — many unpaved at the time — into a 2,448-mile route bearing the catchy designation “66” (“60” was a close contender, but ultimately lost out).
Of all the highways established during this era, U.S. 66 and the Lincoln Highway between San Francisco and New York are arguably the best known. But only Route 66 inspired an endlessly covered song, a television series, movies, books, and decades of merchandise emblazoned with its familiar highway shield and double sixes. This highway passed a mile from my home in the steel mill town of Fontana, Calif., and it was the same highway that took me to my first photographic efforts in Cajon Pass during the 1980s. As I discovered the highway, its last link was being replaced by Interstate 40 in northern Arizona, leading to its official decommissioning in 1985.
ABOVE: An eastbound BNSF Railway freight winds through Kingman Canyon, Ariz., alongside Route 66 in July 2020.
Most railfans can relate to the thrill of pursuing trains via old two-lane blacktop roads, and for this Californian, the “old road” in Cajon was my first taste of freedom. It began by riding with family and friends, especially in friend Bob Spinuzzi’s ’68 Chevelle, and then it expanded with my first car — a green 1974 Ford Maverick that lacked in coolness what it rocked in speed. Mad chases of Santa Fe, Union Pacific, and Southern Pacific trains from San Bernardino to Summit ensued… then the canvas widened with trips to the high desert cities of Victorville, Barstow, and Needles. In the early 1990s, my eyes opened to the relationship between Route 66 and Santa Fe Railway, spanning more than 800 miles together in the American Southwest from California to New Mexico.
It’s been 35 years since my wife, Laura, joined me for the first large-scale road trip from San Bernardino, Calif., to Tucumcari, N.M., in fall 1991. Daughter Kathryn became a fellow road warrior during the early 2000s, as BNSF Railway’s colors slowly assimilated the old Santa Fe image, and I steadily completed a project that became the book Route 66 Railway, first published in 2008. During the 2020s, solo outings and additional trips with Laura have taken a more reflective tone; each visit reveals new changes, losses, and rebirth.
ABOVE: In November 2005, a large highway mural painted on an old Santa Fe caboose celebrates Gallup, N.M.’s ties to both Route 66 and the railroad.
As the variety and color of Santa Fe gave way to standardized BNSF trains over the busy Transcon, my focus shifted even more toward the towns, roadside attractions, and southwest scenery that surround the former AT&SF. From the 1980s through the early 2010s, my photography spotlighted locomotives and cars equally with the land they traversed. Today, it’s more about the trackside experience and finding stories that contrast the busy railroad with the traces of past glories.
The thrill of railroading is still alive, as is the mystique of the deserts, forests, cities, and faded towns that make up the shared railroad and highway experience. The icons are there too — bridges towering and small, road signs, gas stations, and neon signs, along with repurposed cabooses, backyard boxcars, and locomotive museum pieces.
ABOVE: A westbound BNSF Railway freight passes the silent gas pumps at Bellemont, Ariz., in August 2004.
The people along Route 66 keep all these alive, embodied by 99-year-old Angel Delgadillo, a retired barber in Seligman, Ariz., with an infectious smile, who since the 1980s has played a key role in reviving Route 66 with nostalgia tourism. In 2004, I asked Angel to pose with the old Havasu Harvey House in Seligman, then facing demolition despite efforts by BNSF to donate the building (sadly, the town couldn’t raise the funds to move it)…
