We buy trucks in Greensburg

The record here is an assembly plant with 2,700 employees, building the Civic and the CR-V for the North American market, with two rail-yard rows beside it.

Those rows are served by the Central Railroad of Indiana — a short line rather than one of the big carriers, which is worth knowing if you work the sidings. One row sits 2.00 miles from the middle of town, attached by nearest-place fallback rather than by falling inside it.

The two are 1.16 miles apart under that same carrier, and at first glance a same-carrier pair at a short separation is the signature of one facility recorded twice. Here it is not.

That distinction turns on what the differing token in the names actually says. It names a job rather than repeating the name with a tag bolted on: one row is a plant siding, taking inbound parts and materials, and the other is an autoload ramp despatching finished vehicles. Two facilities at one site, and both real.

The autoload half is the part that matters to anyone selling a truck. Finished vehicles leave a ramp like that on multi-car road trailers, so the road equipment this place generates is car-haul tractor-trailers — a different fleet from the bulk work that dominates most of this lane, with different wear and a different buyer.

Four rows elsewhere share a name stem with these at a different assembly plant in another state. They are a separate cluster and nothing here depends on them. What settles it for Decatur County is the pair of function tokens and the 1.16 miles between the siding and the ramp.

Whatever leaves those gates runs under a statute keyed to the road rather than to the cargo.

Indiana sets gross weight at 80,000 lb, single axles at 20,000 and tandems at 34,000 — on the heavy-duty network the state highway agency designates. Off that network gross falls to 73,280 lb and tandems fall from 34,000 to 16,000. Which roads carry the designation was not established here.

Local authorities may impose lesser limits again on their own roads and bridges, and seasonal restrictions are administered county by county rather than as one state season. A separate limit of 800 lb per inch of tire width, loaded or empty, catches dense freight on a short deck.

Car haul wears differently from bulk and it is worth saying so plainly. The miles are highway miles, but the loading, the strapping and the ramp work are constant, so the deck and the hydraulics take the punishment rather than the driveline. A modest odometer on a car hauler is not the whole story.

Ind. Code § 9-20-4-1; local limits under § 9-20-1-4 and § 9-20-7-2. Information, not legal advice.

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.

Indiana brands a vehicle salvage where repair to a roadworthy state would cost more than 70 per cent of its fair market value immediately before the damage, and the statute names semitrailers explicitly, so a trailer can carry a brand independently of the tractor. Rebuilding requires a state police officer to verify ownership of the major component parts used and the source of those parts — a paperwork audit rather than a condition inspection, which a rebuild done without receipts cannot pass.

Ind. Code § 9-22-3-3 and § 9-22-3. Information, not legal advice.

None of that narrows what we will look at. Car haulers, day cabs and road tractors, dump trucks and aggregate haulers, flatbeds, sleepers, rollbacks, tankers, service bodies, box trucks and straight trucks, and the work trucks and pickups that go with a crew.

Box trucks and straight trucks are not a Decatur County thing in particular — 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. The plant gates, the Honda Autoload ramp 1.16 miles from the siding and the county roads around them are where most of it turns up.

• 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.
• It is a car hauler with low miles.Low miles on a car hauler still means a lot of ramp work. Tell us about the deck, the hydraulics and the strapping gear — on a rig running the Honda Autoload ramp those go before the driveline does.
• Do you cover the rest of Decatur County?Yes, all of it and the towns around it. 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.

Those questions come up because the reasons for selling are mostly personal. Retiring. A medical that went the wrong way. A haulaway contract that ended. A truck standing at the back of a lot since somebody stopped driving it, costing insurance every month it does not turn a wheel.

Around Decatur County, and out by the Honda Autoload ramp, 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.