We buy trucks in Huntingburg

Huntingburg carries one node: a Norfolk Southern rail row whose recorded coordinate lies 1.22 miles from the city centroid. Just over a mile from the middle of a town this size means the yard is served off town streets rather than off an interchange.

The record then says two things about that point that cannot both hold — that it is inside the place, and that it lies outside any incorporated place with this town simply the nearest one holding a page. The page will not pick a winner between them. What is certain is the 1.22 miles, and the distance is what a truck actually drives.

Five other Dubois County and Indiana rail rows in this research carry the same pair of statements, so it is a filing artefact rather than something odd about this yard.

That row is also thin on traffic. What moves through the yard could not be determined from any source read for this research, and guessing at it would be inventing the one detail a reader could check.

The 1.22 miles carries a qualification of its own. Rail coordinates here are the mean of a track polyline rather than a surveyed facility point, so the figure runs to the middle of the trackwork and not to a gate.

None of that changes what happens when you call. Across Dubois County we work from the truck rather than from what a rail row is named or what it carries.

Those gaps do not reach the law the truck runs under, and Indiana keys its weight allowance to the road rather than to the cargo.

Gross weight is 80,000 lb, single axles 20,000 and tandems 34,000 on the heavy-duty network the state designates. Off that network the gross falls to 73,280 lb, single axles to 18,000, and a tandem assembly is capped at 16,000 lb for each of its axles — 32,000 for the pair.

So a loaded truck on a Dubois County road gives up 6,720 lb of gross before it meets a posting at all, and which roads carry the designation was not established here. Local authorities may set lesser limits again, and seasonal restrictions are administered county by county rather than as one state season.

One more limit follows the load rather than the road: 800 lb per inch of tire width, loaded or empty, which a dense load reaches on a short deck length rather than spread down a trailer.

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 one sentence: we need a title unless the truck is old enough that it never had one.

Everything after that sentence is a fix rather than a category. A lost title has a counter replacement; where none exists there is a bonded route. Neither one 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 and the source of those parts — a paperwork audit rather than a condition inspection, and a rebuild done without receipts cannot pass it.

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

None of that narrows what we will look at. Day cabs and road tractors, dump trucks and aggregate haulers, flatbeds, farm trucks and grain hauls, 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 Dubois 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. The streets round the yard 1.22 miles from the middle of town, the shops along them and the farm ground beyond 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 ran drayage and never left the county.Short-cycle work puts hours and loading cycles well ahead of the odometer, and that is the normal shape of a truck working a yard 1.22 miles from the middle of town. We read the truck rather than the dash.
• Will you come out to a town this size?Often we don’t need to — plenty of these we buy remotely and arrange the tow, so nobody has to be standing there. All of Dubois County either way. 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 answers matter here because the reasons are ordinary and the nearest buyer is not close. A business changing hands. Retiring. A medical that went the wrong way. A truck standing beside a shop since somebody stopped driving it, costing insurance every month it does not turn a wheel.

Around Dubois County, and within the 1.22 miles between the middle of town and the yard, 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.