RAILROAD DINING, ART, AND CULTURE IN REVIEW BY JAMES D. PORTERFIELD Creative Recycling with Rail Yard Studios
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IF YOU FIND YOURSELF compiling your own dic- tionary, and are stuck for an illustration for the phrase “eye-catching,” you can’t do much better than a piece of furniture from Rail Yard Studios in Nashville, Tenn. Perhaps you’ve seen it first-hand at one of the railroad shows where the company occasionally exhib- its. If not, here we present several items from the company’s portfolio for your inspection. The Pieces: Rail Yard Studios produces furniture in six categories: conference room designs, including tables and credenzas; cof- fee tables; desks; seating; beds; and a catego- ry labeled “Other Creations” that includes a wine rack, iPad stands, a coat rack, bike rack, and a “Reclaimed Railroad Material Lamp.”
to divert it onto a different track.” The steel desktop symbolizes the vandalized freight cars found today in all regions of the country. The Studio: Rail Yard Studios is the brainchild of Robert Hendrick (shown above sitting at the Graffiti Switchpoint Desk). The company occupies 12,000 square feet of space in Nashville, Tenn., 4,000 of it showroom and the remainder shop and storage space. In addition, there are two off-site storage locations. Hendrick is one of the three own- ers — with Rob Humphreys and Rick Turn- er — of Railroad Services, LLC, a railroad contractor working primarily on projects in Kentucky and Tennessee. “We acquired Rail- road Services in 2014,” says Hendricks, “and made note of the downtime our crews endured during the off season. So four years ago we began the furniture-making venture.” Hendricks, who holds degrees in industrial
Among them is the Sleepers Coffee Table
(No. 52), a 53×30" centerpiece that sits 18 inches high. It is made from rail salvaged from the Louisville & Nashville Railroad — the “Old Reliable” — that was manufactured in Germany in 1902. It features a center tray filled with granite ballast “to give it that straight from the tracks look.” For added au- thenticity, the piece is individually numbered with a salvaged railroad tie date nail. Another piece, the Graffiti Switchpoint Desk
(No. 63), captures two aspects of railroading. The base evokes the switchpoint as “an ele- ment of a turnout cut to a highly acute angle which is pressed against the side of a full rail
product design from Auburn University and the Ohio State University, began creating designs for furniture m ade out of old rail the company was pulling out, and unused rail- road ties. “The rail has been pulled by one of our crews,” Hendricks says. “It’s been dam- aged, perhaps by a derailment, or otherwise ‘taken out of service’ due to some other flaw. Each piece holds the manufacturer’s name, the month and year it was manufactured, its weight and profile, the manufacturing meth- od used, and a batch number.” Some of the rail dates to 1896. Hendrick’s practiced eye can also discern whether a piece of rail was used on a straight- away, a curve or a grade. He is fond of point- ing out that, “All rail is straight.” He then adds that the rub on the rail’s head, spike wear on the base, and wear at the end of the rail, are all clues as to its placement. The crossties are all center-cut virgin hard-
wood that have been culled before treatment because of blemishes — incisor piercings per- haps (half-inch slits cut into ties to break the outer surface), or splits, or knots too close to
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