The short line
Five miles of railroad that reaches both national networks
The Modesto and Empire Traction Company is a Class III short line that has run since 1909, originally as an interurban. It covers five miles, from a Union Pacific connection at one end to a BNSF connection at this one, and the point of it is what that gives its customers: access to both Class I networks from a single siding.
That is an unusual thing for a five-mile railroad to offer, and it is why an industrial district grew on it. Its traffic includes food products, wine, syrup, plastics, paper products and manufacturing commodities.
That list of commodities is really a list of trailers
Those six Traction Company commodity types do not share equipment. Syrup and bulk wine move in tankers; paper and packaging move on flatbeds and in box vans; food products move refrigerated or dry depending on the load; plastics move in both.
So a yard in this district can be loading four incompatible trailer types in a morning, and the trucks sold out of Stanislaus County reflect that rather than one dominant local fleet. McClure Yard is the second rail row filed against this place.
What runs here
A transload town, and the valley behind it
So whatever you drive, the offer does not change — we buy all of them. Transload work puts box trucks, straight trucks and flatbeds on these roads, with day cabs shuttling between the Union Pacific end and the plants, and tankers on the liquid side.
Stanislaus County is farm country underneath the industry, so farm trucks and grain hauls belong on the list, and dump trucks turn up wherever there is groundwork. Modesto, Ceres and Riverbank carry pages of their own.
California weight law
The weight table here is not the federal one
That is state law rather than anything local, and it is the rule truck sellers misquote most often. CVC sections 35550 to 35558 set a statutory range of 34,000 to 80,000 lb by axle count and spacing, and § 35551(a) is a table rather than the federal Bridge Formula — no formula is declared in the statute at all.
The California table does not exactly match the Federal Bridge Table, including at three and four axles. So a configuration that is legal under one can be over under the other, and “it makes bridge formula” is a claim about which table you mean. If someone has told you your truck makes it, that is worth knowing before you repeat it.
Questions we actually get
The four that come up every time
Does it have to run? No. But 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. A missing bumper is nothing.
Do I need the title? We need a title, unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. If it is lost, that is a replacement through the DMV and we will walk you through it. If there is a lien on it, say so on the form — that is why the question asks whether the title is in hand rather than whether you own the truck, because those are different situations and they go different ways.
What if it has been in a wreck? Tell us what happened and we will look at it as it is. California sets no percentage: CVC § 544 makes it a judgement about whether repair is economical, so nothing is decided by a formula before we have seen the truck.
How does it get collected, and how am I paid? There is no clock on any of this. 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. Payment is cash or electronic payment.
Sell your truck in Empire
Empire, Modesto, Ceres and the county around them. Tell us what you have and we will take it from there.
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