We buy trucks in Rockledge

The rail row filed under Rockledge is called Cocoa-Rockledge, and it names two adjacent towns rather than one. Cocoa has a page of its own; so does this place; and the yard sits between them on the Florida East Coast Railway line that everything in this part of Brevard County runs along.

That is worth pointing at because the file is not always this clear. Thirteen of the seventy rail-yard rows it holds for this state are attached to a city other than the best one available, and reading those takes work. A row whose own name carries the town is the easy case, and this is one of the easy ones.

Facility-level traffic through the yard was not determined, so nothing is claimed about what moves through it. The line it sits on is a different matter.

So what runs here is what runs on a built-up strip rather than what runs out of a yard. Distribution and service work moving short and often between the towns, construction on the ground behind them, and the equipment that goes with both.

That splits the iron two ways. A single-unit dump truck in this state is held to 70,000 lb gross where a tractor-trailer combination gets 80,000 lb, so it works heavy, slow and close to home; a day cab on a distribution run between here and Merritt Island does the opposite all day.

Both wear, and they wear in different places. Which of the two a truck did is the first thing we read on it around Brevard County.

Which is easier to see once you look at the line itself. The Florida East Coast Railway runs about 350 miles down the Atlantic coast and connects to the national network in exactly one place, at Jacksonville. The railway, US 1 and I-95 all sit within a few miles of the ocean with very little road network east of them.

So north and south are straightforward here and east and west are not, and when the corridor closes there is no short alternative to take instead. A strip town between two others inherits that whole. Its routes are the band’s routes.

It is the reason a truck out of this part of Brevard County tends to have a narrow route history and a lot of it. That is a pattern rather than a problem, and it is one we read for.

So the load rule decides more here than it looks like it should. Florida allows 80,000 lb gross including all enforcement tolerances and 20,000 lb on a single axle.

A single-unit vehicle used as a dump truck, mixer, waste vehicle or fuel tanker may not exceed 70,000 lb gross including the weight of the vehicle. The divisible-load permit adds ten per cent off the interstate system only, and it does not reach those single-unit vehicles at all.

Fla. Stat. § 316.535 and § 316.550(4). Information, not legal advice.

Those are the load. The paperwork is what decides how fast a sale closes. We need a title unless the truck is old enough that it never had one.

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 stays in the owner’s name rather than going with the truck — onto a replacement vehicle of the same class, or back to the county tax collector.

Fla. Stat. § 320.0609(1)(a). Information, not legal advice.

Both halves of that split are iron we buy. Box trucks and straight trucks off the strip, day cabs and road tractors off the coastal band, dump trucks and aggregate haulers held to 70,000 lb where a combination gets 80,000 lb, flatbeds, tankers, rollbacks, service bodies and the pickups behind a crew — the same over at Merritt Island and north at Cocoa.

Whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change. We buy all of them.

• 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.
• The yard on my paperwork is named for two towns. Which one am I in?Both names are on the row, which is unusually helpful — thirteen of the seventy rail rows in this file for this state name one place and sit in another. Either way we read the coordinate and the county first, so it makes no difference to a sale.
• It has only ever run up and down the same stretch. Does a narrow route history count against it?No. East and west are constrained along this coast, so a narrow route history is the ordinary shape of a working truck around Brevard County and over at Merritt Island rather than a sign of anything.
• Do you come out?Yes. We can come to you and drive it away, or come to you and tow it. We can also buy it where it stands and arrange the tow with no visit at all, and you’re welcome to bring it to us if that suits you better.
• 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.

Beyond a truck that has simply done its turns, the reasons are personal ones. Retiring. A medical that went the wrong way. A run along the 350 miles of the Florida East Coast Railway corridor that went away and left one day cab standing in a Brevard County yard, or over at Merritt Island, with nothing booked for it.

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.