Union County
Two yards, two railroads, one town
Two rail yards are attached to this city and they belong to two different carriers — Union Pacific 0.83 miles from the centre, and the Ouachita Railroad 1.67 miles out. For a town this size that is two separate interchanges rather than one.
What each of them carries is on record, and it is unusually specific.
The freight
Petroleum, chemicals and board — not aggregate
Those two carriers move different things. The Ouachita Railroad’s primary traffic is lumber, chemicals and particleboard. The Wesson Railway, running 5.5 miles of its own, carries petroleum products, chemicals and medium density fibreboard.
So the freight base here is tank and flat work rather than stone. That is a fact about the town, not a statement about what we want to buy — but it does mean the trucks that come up for sale around here have often spent their lives on plant gates and board mills rather than pit roads, and they wear accordingly.
Arkansas weight law
Three axles or four decides ten thousand pounds
Those loads run under a weight statute, and for a tandem the sharpest edge in it is an axle count.
Ark. Code § 27-35-203 holds a single axle to twenty thousand pounds and two or more consecutive axles to thirty-four thousand. Where a vehicle takes the section’s axle variance, three axles may not exceed seventy thousand pounds gross and four or more may not exceed eighty thousand — ten thousand pounds settled by the axle count alone, 31.75 metric tonnes against 36.3.
A second limb reaches older equipment. Where a vehicle carries no plate attached by the manufacturer giving its axle and gross ratings, the maximum allowed on the front or steering axle is twelve thousand pounds, which turns a rating question into a statutory one on any truck old enough to have lost its plate.
Ark. Code § 27-35-203. Information, not legal advice.
Arkansas paperwork
We need a title — unless it never had one
Beyond the weight rules, the paperwork is that one sentence.
Everything after it is a fix rather than a category. A lost title has a counter replacement; where none exists there is a bonded route. Neither stops a sale.
The salvage rule brands a vehicle where it is water-damaged as the rule defines that — a limb of its own, needing no percentage — or where other damage reaches seventy per cent of average retail value in a pricing guide the Commissioner has approved. It does not apply to vehicles more than seven model years old before the year of the occurrence that caused the damage, which is most of what we buy.
Arkansas DFA administrative rule 006.05 2007-8, read alongside § 27-35-203. Information, not legal advice.
What we buy here
None of that narrows what we will look at. Tankers, flatbeds, day cabs and road tractors, dump trucks and aggregate haulers, rollbacks, service bodies, farm trucks, box trucks and straight trucks, and the work trucks and pickups that go with a crew.
Box trucks and straight trucks are not a Union County speciality — they are everywhere. They are on the list because we buy them here too.
Whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change. We buy all of them. Most of what turns up comes off a plant gate, a mill yard, or the ground near the Union Pacific interchange.
We buy complete trucks. If the engine, transmission, doors, rear ends, drive shafts, wheels or anything under the hood have been removed, we can’t buy it. Small things — a missing bumper — are fine.
Straight answers
The questions we get asked in El Dorado
- Do you come out, or is this all remote?Either. We come to you and drive it away, we come to you and tow it, we buy it remotely and arrange the tow, or you drive it to us. All four are ordinary across Union County and out to the yards the Ouachita Railroad works, and the remote purchase needs nobody on site.
- Does it have to run?No. It does have to be complete — if the engine, transmission, doors, rear ends, drive shafts, wheels or anything under the hood have been removed, we can’t buy it. Rust is not a disqualifier.
- The engine is out of it. Is that different?Yes, and that is the line. A tired engine is fine; an engine that has been pulled out and sold means we can’t buy the truck.
- What about the title?We need one unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. Lost titles have a counter replacement; where none exists there’s a bonded route. A lienholder means a payoff and a release, and that is the slow part.
- It hauled chemicals. Is that a problem?Not in itself, but tell us what it carried and whether the tank or body is staying with it. What a truck moved changes what we need to look at, and it is far easier settled before we come out than after.
Why people call
Those answers matter more than the freight mix does, because the reasons behind the call are ordinary. Retiring. A medical that didn’t go the way it used to. A contract ending, or a plant changing what it runs. A truck standing behind a shop since somebody stopped driving it, costing insurance every month it doesn’t turn a wheel.
Around Union County and the sidings the Ouachita Railroad still works there is usually one waiting.
Most of those aren’t happy reasons, and we don’t treat them like they are. Somebody wants a straight answer and the truck gone by the end of the week. That’s what we’re here for.