We buy trucks in Whiting

Two rail-yard rows are attached to Whiting and both need a caveat before anything is built on them. One, under Norfolk Southern, is recorded 2.48 miles from the middle of town; the other, under Canadian National, 2.83 miles. Both are attached by nearest-place fallback, and both coordinates actually fall inside Hammond, which holds a page of its own.

That is the third variety of filing problem this county produces. Elsewhere a row named for one city is attached to another; here the attachment is a fallback and the coordinate lands somewhere else again.

What either yard handles could not be determined from any source read. The interesting one is the second, and what makes it interesting is a border.

That second row is named for a generating station, and an identically named row under the same Canadian National carrier sits 0.37 miles away in Burnham, on the Illinois side. The station stood on the boundary between the two states, so the row is split at the boundary — one facility, two records, one in each state.

A scan for same-name same-carrier pairs in different states found ten such pairs within five miles of each other, and every single one is a border facility. Two of the ten are named for the state line they straddle. That is not a coincidence, it is what a state-partitioned dataset does to anything sitting on the edge of a state.

One limit on that reading, stated plainly: whether the generating station still operates was not determined. The name is recorded as unverified rather than as a live industrial identification, so this page treats it as a label on a rail row and nothing more.

Those two rows sit either side of a boundary that changes the law as well as the filing, and Indiana’s side of it is 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, less than half. Which roads carry the designation was not established here, so nothing on this page says whether a particular route qualifies.

Local authorities may impose lesser limits again on their own roads and bridges, which in a district where three city lines meet inside a few miles is a question to ask locally rather than assume. Seasonal restrictions are administered county by county rather than as one state season.

Dense freight meets one more limit wherever it runs: 800 lb per inch of tire width, loaded or empty. Steel, coke and stone all reach it 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 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, tankers, flatbeds, rollbacks, car haulers, 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 Lake 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 Calumet yards, the Burnham side 0.37 miles across the boundary and the roads between 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 titled in Illinois but parked here.Ordinary this close to the boundary and not a problem — the paperwork follows where it is titled, not where it is standing. All of Lake County either way.
• I am actually in Hammond, not Whiting.So are both of the rail rows on this page — the Norfolk Southern one and the Canadian National one alike. It makes no difference to us; the city line matters less than the road the truck is standing on. 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 that ended when work moved across the boundary. A truck standing on a lot since somebody stopped driving it, costing insurance every month it does not turn a wheel.

Around Lake County, and over towards the Burnham side 0.37 miles across the boundary, 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.