The crossing
The town is here because the railroad crosses the river here
This is where BNSF’s Southern Transcon crosses the Colorado River into Arizona. The town exists as a function of the railroad and that crossing, which is a plainer origin story than most places have.
Train counts at this specific point were not determined. Figures published for Barstow are for a different point on the same line and we are not going to transfer them here — a number measured somewhere else is not a number about this place.
That desert around it holds a working gold mine
That emptiness is not as empty as it looks. The state’s SMARA register carries the Castle Mountain Mine as active, primary product gold, operator Castle Mountain Venture, on 1,375 acres of permit. MSHA records 38 employees there and an active date of 15 July 2021.
Equinox Gold controls it along with a much larger operation over in the Imperial Valley, so this is one end of a two-mine group rather than an isolated pit. Mine work in San Bernardino County means haul roads, heat and distance, and all three of those are hard on a truck in ways that do not show on an odometer.
What runs here
An interstate town at the end of the state
So whatever you drive, the offer does not change — we buy all of them. A river crossing on an interstate corridor puts day cabs and road tractors on the road, mining and construction put dump trucks, flatbeds and aggregate haulers on it, and pickups and work trucks are everywhere. The Colorado River crossing is what all of it is organised around.
This is a long way from anywhere in San Bernardino County, which is larger than nine US states. That distance is the reason the usual answer here is that we buy it remotely and arrange the move rather than asking anyone to drive it out.
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. Out here the common one is that we buy it remotely and arrange the tow, so the sale does not wait on anybody driving out. We also come to you and drive it away, come to you and tow it, or you drive it to us. Payment is cash or electronic payment.
Sell your truck in Needles
Needles and the Colorado River crossing. Most sales out here we buy remotely and arrange the tow, so nothing waits on a drive across the desert.
Sell My Truck