Planked Crossties

These surprised us. We were stunned at the beauty of what came out of these crossties.

The gum (top pic) has a flame like appearance. The hickory (two middle pics) has its well-known dark and light striations and an interesting bit of bark seam. The hackberry (bottom pic) has thin dark thin lines coursing through it.

Once we get these down to a finished product, the colors and graining are going to be something truly amazing to behold.

Hmmmm. Now what shall we make from these? Let me know if you have a suggestion.

Boxing It Up

Things have been going well for us in many regards at Rail Yard Studios.

We’ve gotten better and more efficient by planning and adding some process to the mix – that’s just part of what Rob Humphreys’ experience has brought to the table. He focuses on creating bottlenecks in our process and then figuring out how to eliminate them. That’s led us to add new equipment to the shop among other things.

Here’s a prime example that made our lives easier and made things better for our clients as well:

We had been custom-making each crate as we shipped out. That worked just fine while we were learning and getting up to speed. But as we got more proficient at our design and building process, that became our biggest bottleneck. It was slowing us down getting product out the door to our very patient clients.

So we surveyed our product line. We were able to take our main designs and place them into 4 groups and thus 4 primary crate sizes.  So now, 90% of our product will fit into 1 of 4 crate sizes. Trust me, it sure beats building a built from scratch crate each time.

Custom orders still are subject to the one-off crates, but they often times will fit into 1-2 of our standard crate sizes (yeah, like we planned it that way). Suffice to say, it is a huge improvement from where we were.

And just to make it a bit sweeter, we managed to get our branding on the new crates with all the time we saved!

Ears. Ears. And more ears.

If memory serves correctly, it was Pop who first named these pieces “ears” – slices of rail that are just thick enough to hold a bunch of different things.

Things like

• Wine
• Coats
• Bikes
• Desks (like our Telegraph Desk)
• Guns
• Guitars
• And more.

These are a key component in our wine racks, coat racks, bike racks and in our upcoming gun racks and guitar racks.

Looks like we are going to be busy – very busy.

Had a great time at Architectural Digest in New York and got to see some of the friends we made at One of a Kind in Chicago as well. A big shout out to John Murphy and Geoffrey Keating who we have loved getting to know over the past few months! And Bruce MacDonald and David Stine, too!

Rail Gang Table

Rail gangs and tie gangs are the large groups of railroaders working on big projects. Whether you use it for a dining table or a conference table, that’s just what this table is for - bringing a few folks together.

We’ve got a single hickory timber cut in half and then offset just a bit to give it some interest and sneak a little extra length out of the cross ties. Four legs made from Tennessee Coal & Iron Company rail complete the look and have you ready to eat or to meet.

We were pretty taken with our work on this one. Guess we weren’t alone in admiring it since it’s already found a home as a railroad executive’s conference table.

Photo credit: Matt Collins of Collins Imagery

Sometimes we’re moving so fast, we forget to mention some things. Some really, really important things.

Over the past few months, we’ve added to the Rail Yard Studios team. 

Rob Humphreys joined us as a business partner in both the Rail Yard Studios and Railroad Services businesses. He’s a fellow native Nashvillian, a seasoned business executive and a guy who loves to work with his hands. He handled corporate finance for First American Bank in his early career before spending time as a research analyst at SunTrust Equitable Securities in NY. Most recently, he was the CEO at United Fiberglass where he still serves on the board. He’s done lots more, and you can find out all about it on his Linked In profile here.

He’s also a technology genius - one of those people that bulldogs a technology problem until he nails it down. And he’s turned himself into a social media maven. We’re very fortunate to have him aboard.

And he’s got a great name, but it’s a little confusing. Both our initials are JRH. But he’s the second in his family and I’m the third, so he’s JRH2 and I’m JRH3, so at least we can tell ourselves apart. 

Welcome, Rob.

And Thanks!

Double Track Credenza

Made from a single hickory timber and four sticks of Tennessee Coal & Iron Company rail circa 1906. This one is unique because it is the only piece we have done to date with the legs left unsealed. You won’t want the natural rust material on a rug or anything that will stain easily, but dang it looks nice!

This one is sure to start a conversation when folks realize that it’ made of century-old railroad materials.

Photo credit: Matt Collins of Collins Imagery

Art direction credit: Hillary Humphreys (it was all you!)

Louisville and Nashville Coffee Table

This one is the little sister to the L&N Credeza we posted a little while back. It is the other end of the same crosstie, but rather than repeat ourselves, we made a Double Track Coffee Table 18”(H) x 54”(L) x 20”(W).

When the crew pulled this rail out, they called me and said, “Robert, we’ve never seen anything like this,” and I could not wait to lay eyes on it.

This rail bears the manufacturer’s mark AND the railroad’s name. This rail was made by Hoesch in Germany in 1902 for the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. The brand reads “L&N RR” and we only have a handful of these brands available. 

Again, we serve up our disclaimer on our Made in USA claim because these rails were made in Germany 109 years ago. They’ve been here long enough that we personally consider them naturalized citizens.

This is one of the first two pieces from that rail. Coupled with a very heavily featured hickory timber, this one has an entirely unique look and feel.

Photo credit: Matt Collins of Collins Imagery