Floyd County
One operator, a mine and a plant, and the truck work between them
Two coal rows are attached here and both belong to Tahiti Energy. One is an underground working with eight people on it. The other is the Spurlock Plant, with 28.
That pairing describes a specific kind of haul. A mine cuts coal; a plant washes and sizes what has already been cut. So the trucking between them is a short fixed circuit rather than production haulage or line haul — the same load, the same road, many times a day.
A rail yard under CSX sits 1.10 miles from the centroid, attached by nearest-place fallback. Between the three rows you have the whole chain: out of the ground, through the plant, onto the railway. A truck from around here worked one link of it, and which link decides how it reads.
Short circuits, and what they do to a machine
Those links wear differently and it is the most useful thing to say to anyone selling one. In-pit haulage for Tahiti Energy means haul-road impact, rock landing in the body and tyre cuts. Work at the Spurlock Plant or the yard means manoeuvring hours, hoist cycles and tailgate wear without any of that.
Neither shows on an odometer. A truck that ran a two-mile circuit between a working and a plant for ten years has enormous cycle counts and modest mileage, and reads as barely used until somebody counts the hours.
What the yard itself handles could not be determined from any source read for this work, the Kentucky statewide rail and freight plans included. Its coordinate is a polyline-vertex mean rather than a gate, so the 1.10 miles measures to the middle of some track.
Kentucky weight law
Coal country, and the road list this page has not read
Those three links all sit under one statute, and in this county its coal half is the one written for the place.
Kentucky certifies an Extended Weight Coal Haul Road System carrying 90,000 lb on one steering axle plus two tandem axles, with a five per cent tolerance. This is the eastern Kentucky coal field and that is exactly where it is meant to apply. It is also a certified road list rather than a blanket allowance, and whether this location sits on a certified road was not determined for this work — so the figure is described and applied to nothing. A truck is on the system or it is not.
The everyday rule is the other one: a ten per cent tolerance on the axle weight provisions for vehicles engaged exclusively in hauling crushed stone, fill dirt and rock, soil, bulk sand, coal, phosphate muck, asphalt, concrete, solid waste, tankage or animal residues, livestock, feed for livestock or poultry, and agricultural products, and not on the interstate system. Coal is named, and there is little interstate out here to lose it on.
Kentucky’s posted-bridge list was not located either, so no posting is asserted on any road near this town.
KRS 177.9771 and KRS 189.222(1)(c); Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, Coal Haul Highway System. Information, not legal advice.
Kentucky paperwork
We need a title — unless it never had one
Beyond the weight, the paperwork is that one sentence, and none of it needs anybody to drive up the valley to begin.
Everything after it is a fix rather than a category. A lost title has a counter replacement; where one never existed there is a bonded route. Neither stops a sale.
The statute brands a vehicle salvage when parts and labour to rebuild it to pre-accident condition and legal operation exceed 75 per cent of its retail value, with the cost of reinstalling a deployed airbag system excluded from that sum — a flat percentage rather than a formula. On a coal body that has run a plant circuit for years it is the number that decides what the title says.
And on a truck standing at somebody else’s yard the clock is 45 days, after which, with reasonable or agreed storage or towing charges unpaid, it may be sold to pay them. Liens are recorded through the county clerk here and may be transmitted electronically.
KRS 186A.520 on branding, KRS 186A.195 on liens, and KRS ch. 376 on storage and towing. Information, not legal advice.
What we buy here
None of that narrows what we will look at, and out here the collection question matters more than the truck type does. Coal haulers and dump trucks off the Tahiti Energy work. Day cabs and road tractors on whatever runs out of the valley. Flatbeds, box trucks and straight trucks, service bodies, rollbacks, and the pickups that go with a crew.
Whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change. We buy all of them.
Start from the far end on collection, because on Floyd County valley roads that is the realistic one. We can buy it remotely and arrange the tow with nobody coming out at all. If you would rather we came, we come to you and drive it away, or come to you and tow it. And you are welcome to bring it to us.
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 Martin
- 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.
- It ran the same two miles for ten years.Then hours and loading cycles are the only honest reading. A circuit between a working and the Spurlock Plant puts enormous cycle counts on a hoist and a tailgate while the odometer barely moves. Say roughly how long.
- It worked the plant, not the mine.Then say so, because it reads better. Plant and yard work misses haul-road impact, rock in the body and tyre cuts on shot rock, so the frame usually looks stronger than the hours suggest.
- It hauled on the coal-haul roads.Then tell us which. The 90,000 lb system is a certified list, we have not read it, and we will not claim your Floyd County route was on it.
- What about the title?We need one unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. A lost title has a counter replacement, and where none ever existed there is a bonded route.
- How am I paid?Cash or electronic payment. That is the whole list.
Why people call
Both of the last two usually sit inside a bigger story. Retiring, after a working life on the same valley roads. A medical that didn’t go the way it used to. A contract that finished, or a seam that ran out. A truck standing in a yard since somebody stopped driving it, costing insurance every month it isn’t turning a wheel.
Fewer buyers is the other reason the phone rings up here, and with one Tahiti Energy operator holding both coal rows in this Floyd County town, that last one tends to arrive in groups rather than singly.
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.
Kentucky weight and title rules read from the Kentucky Revised Statutes in August 2026 — verify with the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet before acting on them. Operators, employment and facility types from the MSHA mines dataset and the central node list; yard operator, place attachment and coordinate provenance from the same list. What the yard handles could not be determined from any source read. Whether this location sits on the certified coal-haul road list was not determined, so the 90,000 lb figure is described and not applied; Kentucky’s posted-bridge list was not located, so no posting is asserted on any road near this town.