We buy trucks in Terre Haute

Four rail-yard rows are attached to Terre Haute, all of them within two and a half miles of the middle of town: two under CSX Transportation at 1.90 and 2.14 miles, and two under the Indiana Rail Road at 1.75 and 2.44.

That even split is the point. Elsewhere in this state a pair of rows under one carrier at a short separation usually turns out to be one facility written down twice, and the check for it is whether one name is the other with a token bolted on. Here the four names are four different names, two carriers, two rows each — so no duplicate is called among them, and the count of four is a count of four places.

What each of them handles could not be determined from any source read. That is a real gap and this page does not fill it with a guess.

Those two carriers matter more than the yard count does. A city served by one railroad and a city served by two are different trucking markets, because a second carrier means competing lanes into the same town and short drayage moves between yards that would not otherwise exist.

Beyond the yards themselves the record holds no quarry, plant or terminal attached to this city, which is unusual for a place this size and is stated rather than papered over. Absence of a row is not absence of industry — it means nobody found one.

Greencastle is 31.9 miles away, and the cement works there is the nearest heavy industry the research does hold. So what governs a truck out of Vigo County is mostly the same thing that governs one anywhere in the state.

Which is a statute keyed to the road rather than to the cargo, and that is unusual enough to be the most useful thing on this page.

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. Georgia, Kentucky, Florida and Arkansas grant their allowance for what is being hauled. Indiana grants it for the road, and takes 6,720 lb back the moment a truck leaves the designated list.

Which roads are on that list was not established here. Underneath it local authorities may impose lesser limits of their own, and seasonal restrictions are administered county by county rather than as one state season.

Read as wear, the same rule explains a lot about a used truck. A lower legal load means more trips for the same tonnage, so hours, loading cycles and brake applications run ahead of the odometer on anything that worked off-network. Short drayage between yards does the same thing for the same reason.

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, dump trucks and aggregate haulers, flatbeds, sleepers, rollbacks, car haulers, 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 Vigo 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 four yards, the city work and the 31.9 miles over to Greencastle 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 only ever did short yard-to-yard runs.Short runs between the CSX and Indiana Rail Road yards do exactly that. Then hours tell you more than the odometer does. Brakes, clutch and suspension go first on that work, and a low mileage reading can sit on a hard-worked driveline. Say what it did.
• How far out do you come?All of Vigo 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 lane that dried up when a contract ended. A truck sitting at the back of a yard since somebody stopped driving it, costing insurance every month it does not turn a wheel.

Across Vigo County, and out on the 31.9 miles to Greencastle, the same trucks come up for sale for the same reasons.

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.