At Rail Yard Studios, old railroad steel doesn’t just get repurposed—it gets reborn. Massive beams, weathered timber, and forgotten track materials are transformed into handcrafted furniture with a second life and a new story.

But the real transformation doesn’t happen in the metal. It happens in the people. With a railroad crew working on the tracks and a workshop crew building furniture every day, we have a group of experts performing in their respective fields.

Some employees cross over from the tracks to the shop, giving us an advantage when the ebb and flow of work naturally comes our way.

No two people here arrived by the same route.

Some grew up around heavy equipment or stumbled into the railroad because a friend mentioned an opportunity. Another simply stepped into a role because someone needed to tell the story. Some came because they loved creating. Others because they simply loved to work.

When Robert Hendrick made the bold decision to buy a railroad construction business, he didn't know what kind of work family he'd be building. He didn't even know he would design and create furniture out of railroad elements until 10 years into the project.

Somehow, they all ended up in the same rail yard.

Ask what they do, and the answers are almost laughably simple.

“I supervise.”

“I operate equipment.”

“I work hard.”

“I do everything.”

Behind those humble answers is a crew that moves mountains of steel, solves problems before breakfast, dreams up furniture that has never existed before, and somehow turns forgotten railroad materials into pieces that families will gather around for generations.

The work is serious, but the people don’t always take themselves so seriously.

Every shop has stories, and our stories are no different.

There was the forklift that found a parked car as it was backing up with a load of steel. (Thank goodness for insurance.)

There was a load that reminded everyone why tie-down straps matter, as they watched a tank tumble down the road.

There are stories about driving spikes, moving impossible loads, and explaining to visitors why what looks like scrap is actually a piece of American history.

Robert recalls the first time a layer of rust was peeled away from an old rail to reveal the words “Carnegie 1896,” like uncovering a signature left behind more than a century ago. Watching that same type of rail melt down in the thermal plant is what made him perk up and dream big.

And then there are the stories that have nothing to do with railroads at all.

One member of the crew once operated heavy equipment in Antarctica, helping build an air base in one of the harshest environments on Earth. They drilled into a mountain for materials and created a building that connected all the others to keep everyone safe indoors as they traversed from one to the other.

Another has wandered through 39 countries and can carry on conversations in Spanish and Italian. Today she handles online administrative work, blogging, and all those social media posts that come across your phone.

Robert speaks fluent German as an American who lived in Germany, learning the very skills he uses to design and architecturally draw every piece of furniture we make.

One climbed to the summit of the Grand Tetons. Another is teaching himself French.

One spends weekends fishing whenever the fish decide to cooperate. Another can surprise everyone with a haka dance to break up the day.

One spends free time chasing Pokémon with his son and has somehow made his way into country music videos and magazines.

And someone once decided that bungee jumping from a crane in the middle of a supermarket parking lot sounded like a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

Those stories may seem unrelated.

They’re not.

They’re all about curiosity.

Adventure.

The willingness to try something new.

Maybe that’s why this place works.

Because transforming railroad history into furniture requires more than craftsmanship.

It requires people who look at a pile of weathered steel and see possibility instead of scrap. People who enjoy solving problems, making things with their hands, and leaving every project a little better than they found it.

Every piece that leaves Rail Yard Studios carries the marks of its past—mill stamps, worn edges, and a century of history.

It also carries something else.

The fingerprints of the people who believed it deserved another chance.

And we think that’s the best story of all.

More Than Furniture

By the time a piece leaves Rail Yard Studios, it has passed through many hands, each leaving behind something that can't be measured—a little ingenuity, craftsmanship, and pride.

The railroad has always been about connecting places. We like to think our work connects people, too. From the railroader who first laid the track to the craftsman who gives that steel a second life, every piece continues a journey that didn't end when the train rolled by.

That's what you're really bringing home.

Not just a piece of railroad history, but a piece of the people who believed it was worth preserving.