Boston runs a short-haul fleet on 48 square miles of land. More than half the carriers with a city address are private fleets hauling their own goods, and the median carrier reports 12,500 miles a year on each power unit, a city number.
So the Boston truck is more often a straight truck than a tractor: a two-axle box truck on a delivery route, a garbage truck, a moving van, a reefer, a tri-axle dump truck on a city site. The tankers load at the Chelsea racks, and the cars come off at the Autoport there. A semi truck with a sleeper is the exception, and we buy it too.
Haymarket, and fifteen days on a duplicate
The RMV service center at 136 Blackstone Street at Haymarket takes the title application inside the city. Massachusetts will not issue a new title to a buyer on a duplicate until fifteen days after the application, so the day the duplicate goes in is the day that clock starts; that rule, the lien and the total-loss title are on the Massachusetts page.
A Boston truck has spent its life on narrow streets and under low bridges, and shows it in the mirrors, the corners of the body and the roof as much as anywhere. Photograph the body all round with the cab and the engine, and tell us the route it worked.
Thirty-six low bridges
Massachusetts lets a two-axle truck run heavier than the federal 80,000 pounds table would suggest, and the figures are on the state page. Boston's own fact is the bridge list: 36 bridges under fourteen feet, the lowest at nine feet eleven where North Harvard Street crosses Soldiers Field Road, which is why the Boston truck is built short and low before it is built heavy. The state inspection sticker counts as the federal annual inspection, so if it is current, put it in the photos.
Say whether the truck is near Readville, by the Chelsea racks or in town, send the photos and a photo of the title, and say whether we come for it, buy it where it sits or you bring it out to us. An offer is what comes back.