One crossing, two answers, and the truck decides which
The Catherine Mine employs seven people about a mile and a half from Bushnell. Within ten miles of it the National Bridge Inventory records 49 structures, one of them coded below legal loads, 9.10 miles out — record 184006, carrying CR-48, county-maintained.
Its operating rating is 36.1 metric tonnes. A legal 80,000 lb combination grosses 36.3. So that crossing sits two tenths of a tonne — about four hundred pounds — below the point at which a legal load simply goes over whole. It is the ordinary case by two hundred kilograms.
Which produces something we have not seen elsewhere in this lane: one bridge with two different answers. A single-unit dump truck is capped at 70,000 lb, which is 31.75 tonnes, so it crosses CR-48 whole with more than four tonnes to spare. A combination at 80,000 lb does not.
So the configuration of the truck decides the route, not the bridge
So the thing that changes the answer at that crossing is not the road and not the load. It is how the vehicle is built.
That inverts the usual reading. Everywhere else in this state the single-unit cap is the disadvantage — 70,000 lb against 80,000 lb, ten thousand pounds of carrying capacity given up by configuration. At CR-48, 9.10 miles from the Catherine Mine, the same cap is what lets the truck across without thinking about it.
Neither reading is the whole picture, which is rather the point. A ceiling that costs you on most days can be the thing that keeps you moving on one particular road.
Florida weight law
And the permit does not close the gap either
Both of those numbers are fixed by statute rather than by anything a permit can lift.
Florida sets 80,000 lb gross including all enforcement tolerances and holds a single-unit dump truck, mixer, waste vehicle or fuel tanker to 70,000 lb. The divisible-load permit adds ten per cent over legal gross, off the interstate system only — and it explicitly does not reach those single-unit vehicles, so the ten thousand pounds cannot be bought back.
Fla. Stat. § 316.535(4), (5) and (6), with § 316.550(4). Information, not legal advice.
Florida paperwork
We need a title — unless the truck never had one
Those numbers stop mattering the day the truck changes hands, and the paperwork is what is left.
A lost title has a counter replacement. Where none exists there is a bonded route. Neither is unusual and neither stops a sale.
The plate is the Florida detail people miss: it stays in the owner’s name and comes off the truck, to be moved to another vehicle of the same class or surrendered to the county tax collector.
Fla. Stat. § 320.0609(1)(a). Information, not legal advice.
What we buy here
All of it is iron we buy, at 70,000 lb or 80,000 lb and either side of CR-48. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers off the Catherine Mine. Day cabs and road tractors, flatbeds, box trucks, tankers, rollbacks, service bodies and the pickups that go with a small crew.
Whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change. We buy all of them.
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 Bushnell
- 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.
- It is a single-unit and I have always been told that is the worse configuration. Is it?Usually, at 70,000 lb against 80,000 lb. But at CR-48, 9.10 miles from the Catherine Mine, it is the one that crosses whole — so it depends entirely on the road.
- What about the title?We need one unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. A lost title has a counter replacement; where none exists there’s a bonded route.
- How do you pay?Cash or electronic payment, whichever suits you.
Why people call
Beyond a truck that has simply done its turns, the reasons are personal ones. Retiring. A medical that went the wrong way. A pit contract that ended and left one truck standing 9.10 miles from CR-48 with nothing booked for it, whether it was plated at 70,000 lb or 80,000 lb.
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.