Elrond Lawrence

Elrond Lawrence is an award-winning writer and photographer with a passion for railroads and historic highways. His stories and photos appear in Trains and other hobby/industry magazines, plus books and calendars.

Elrond grew up in the Kaiser Steel town of Fontana, Cal., a few blocks from the Santa Fe Railway and Route 66. He credits his love of trains and Southwest highways to his parents, Charles and Jill Lawrence, who took him on vacations along Route 66 to the desert 'hotspot' of Barstow! He's written about San Francisco’s streetcars, the Salton Sea, Salinas Valley, and more.

His road trips have taken him from the LA River to the Tehachapi mountains, up the Central Valley to Oregon, across the Mojave Desert and east to Flagstaff and Albuquerque. Besides documenting the changing world of railroad history, he's a lifetime fan of Star Wars, Star Trek, baseball, and midcentury modernism. Elrond posts frequently on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. For those who are wondering, his parents were big Tolkien fans! He lives near Salinas, Cal. with his wife Laura and cats Atticus, Oliver, and Lucy.