Polk County
Three yards, three railroads, three miles
The unusual thing about the rail here is not how much of it there is but who owns it. Three yards sit within about 3 miles of the middle of town and all three belong to different carriers — the Transfer Yard about 1.6 miles north-east under BNSF Railway, the Shortline about 1.9 miles under the Interstate Railroad, and Hull Avenue about 3.1 miles under Union Pacific. Three competitors inside one short drive, and the research notes the point explicitly: because the three carriers differ, none of the three rows is a duplicate of another.
What feeds them is river sand and stone. The Martin Marietta pit at Saylorville is about 6 miles north, Lounsbury Sand & Gravel about 10 miles west, and two more — a Martin Marietta plant on the Raccoon River and a Hallett Materials pit — about 13 miles west. The mill traffic sits the other side: General Mills at Carlisle is about 6 miles south-east.
A transfer yard is a road interface
That first yard is worth naming for what it is rather than what it is called. A transfer facility moves freight between carriers or between modes, which means it is a place where something stops being rail and starts being road — the truck is not incidental to it, it is the point of it. The commodities actually handled at any of the three yards could not be established from any source read for the research, so nothing is claimed about what moves through them.
Beyond the sand pits the work gets longer. Camp Dodge is about 19 miles north-west, the Earlham Quarry about 26 miles west with 24 people on it, and the Ames plants and mine sit 30 to 34 miles north — the mine at Ames alone employs 57. That is an hour of driving inside one working radius.
Iowa weight law
The season is written into the statute, not onto a sign
Those farm-edge runs meet a seasonal rule the statute sets out itself. Iowa Code § 321.463 sets the general maximum gross weight at 80,000 lb for a vehicle or combination, subject to axle weight requirements, with penalties graduated by degree of infraction. Then it writes a season directly into the text: the axle weight of a fence-line feeder, grain cart or tank wagon may not exceed 24,000 lb from 1 February through 31 May, or 28,000 lb from 1 June through 31 January, with gross not exceeding 96,000 lb.
The date is the point. It applies on fixed calendar days whether or not there is a sign. Permitted loads are held to a maximum of 20,000 lb per axle: indivisible loads under Iowa Code § 321E.7, § 321E.8 or § 321E.9, and under § 321E.29A or § 321E.29B; divisible loads under § 321E.26. Whether the state carries a commodity or harvest variance, and whether such a variance would stop at the interstate, is not determined, and it is not inferred here.
Iowa Code § 321.463; permit sections at § 321E.7, § 321E.8 and § 321E.9, and at § 321E.26, § 321E.29A and § 321E.29B. Information, not legal advice, and only as current as the date the rule file was last verified.
Iowa paperwork
We need a title — unless it never had one
Beyond the weight rules that is the whole of it in one sentence, and everything after it is a fix rather than a category. A counter replacement if the title is lost, a bonded route if the truck is old enough that it never had one. Neither stops a sale.
Two state rules here are worth having straight, and one of them moved recently. A wrecked or salvage vehicle is one whose repair costs exceed 70 per cent of its fair market value before the damage, where that pre-damage figure was $500 or more — the threshold was raised from 50 per cent on 1 July 2021, so anything written before that date is out by twenty points. And converting a salvage title back produces a title marked Rebuilt-IA, which supersedes every other designation and is carried forward onto all subsequent titles here.
Iowa Administrative Code 761—405.2(1) and 405.7(1); Iowa Code § 321.52(4). Information, not legal advice.
What we buy here
Those worlds run different iron, and whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change — we buy all of them. Day cabs and road tractors off the three yards. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers out of the Saylorville and Raccoon River pits. Grain hauls and farm trucks off the fields west, box trucks and straight trucks on the mill runs to Carlisle, flatbeds, service bodies and the pickups that follow the rest of it around.
Most of it works inside about 13 miles of one point — three yards, four pits, and the Hallett Materials and Lounsbury operations out west.
We buy complete trucks. If the engine, transmission, doors, rear ends, drive shafts, wheels or anything under the hood have been removed, we can’t buy it. Small things — a missing bumper — are fine.
Straight answers
The questions we get asked in Des Moines
- Does it have to run?No. It does have to be complete, though — if the engine, transmission, doors, rear ends, drive shafts, wheels or anything under the hood have been removed, we can’t buy it. A missing bumper is fine. A missing driveline is not.
- Do you actually come to Polk County?Yes. 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. Nothing here is far — the three yards are inside about 3 miles of each other and the furthest pit is about 13.
- What if I can’t find the title?We need a title — unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. If it’s lost, there’s a counter replacement. If there was never one to lose, there’s a bonded route. Neither stops a sale.
- There’s still money owed on it. Now what?That’s a payoff and a lien release, and it’s the slow part rather than the hard part. Tell us up front and we’ll work it into the paperwork.
- How do you pay?Cash or electronic payment, whichever you would rather have.
- How far out do you come?All of Polk County and well past it — north to Camp Dodge and the Ames plants about 30 miles out, west to the Earlham Quarry. Distance has not stopped us yet.
Why people call
Beyond the trucks themselves, the reasons repeat. A DOT physical didn’t go the way it used to. A hauling contract that filled the week for nine years went to somebody else. The truck is just sitting behind a shop, and every month it sits is another month of insurance on something that isn’t turning a wheel.
The lots around the Hull Avenue yard and out toward the Saylorville pit about 6 miles north hold a fair number of trucks in exactly that position, and so do the yards over toward Carlisle.
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.