We buy trucks in Lafayette

The largest thing in the record here is not a quarry or a yard. It is an automotive assembly plant — more than 6,500 associates, and the only plant its manufacturer runs in the United States, with an expansion under way that adds up to 350 more jobs.

An assembly plant is a freight problem before it is anything else. Parts arrive on a schedule that does not tolerate being late and finished vehicles leave on car haulers, so the truck traffic around one is a mix of dry van, flatbed and haulaway rather than the bulk work that dominates most of this state’s node list.

Three rail-yard rows are filed against the city alongside it, which is where the record gets interesting.

Those three rows undercount the ground by one. A fourth yard carries the plant’s own name and is filed against Dayton, a separate place — but its coordinate falls inside Lafayette city. So the city holds four rail yards in fact and three on paper.

The three filed here are a mixed set. One belongs to CSX Transportation, 2.90 miles out and genuinely inside the city. Another sits 3.16 miles out under Norfolk Southern and is attached by nearest-place fallback, its coordinate outside any incorporated place at all. The third, 2.76 miles out, carries a bare directional name and nothing in the record establishes what it is south of; two other Indiana rows have the same problem.

None of that changes what a truck does, and none of it is a reason to claim more than the record holds: what any of the three actually handles could not be determined from any source read. The plant is the fact here. The yards are context.

Those routes are governed by a statute keyed to the road rather than to the cargo, which is unusual among the states on file.

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, less than half. Which roads carry the designation was not established here, so nothing on this page says which side of the line a particular route falls.

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.

Read as wear rather than as law, the first rule matters to anyone selling. A lower legal load means more trips for the same tonnage, so a truck that worked off the designated network carries more hours, more loading cycles and more brake applications behind the same odometer reading. Haulaway work has its own version of that — the miles are highway but the loading and unloading are constant.

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. Day cabs and road tractors, car haulers, 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 Tippecanoe 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 CSX and Norfolk Southern yards, and the roads out towards Logansport 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 haulaway, not freight. Same thing?Yes, we buy those. High highway miles with a lot of loading and strapping on top, so we ask about the deck and the hydraulics as much as the driveline. A lot of that work runs out of the plant gates and past the Norfolk Southern yard.
• How far out do you come?All of Tippecanoe County 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 contract with a plant or a carrier 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 Tippecanoe County and the plant gates there is usually one waiting, and often enough it has run the 33.3 miles over to Logansport.

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.