Montana's heavy freight is coal, metal and grain. Coal mines work at Colstrip, Savage, Busby and Wyola with a prep plant at Klein, metal mines at Nye and Rader Creek, and flour mills at Billings, Great Falls, Opheim and Sweet Grass. Cement plants run at Montana City and Wheatland, rail yards at Billings, Missoula, Columbia Falls and Colstrip, and dimension-stone quarries at Harlowton, Kalispell and Hot Springs.
A Kenworth day cab out of Billings, a Western Star haul truck off a Colstrip pit, a Freightliner sleeper running through Missoula or a Ford dually out of Great Falls go through the same steps: photos and details come to us, an offer goes back, and from there we can collect it, buy it remotely, or you can drive it in.
Montana’s trucking industry is a vast state where commercial trucks are essential for moving agricultural, mining, and energy freight across long distances.
The statute states a formula. The number is in the rule
Montana Code § 61-10-107 sets the axle limits and a bridge formula — W = 500((LN/(N-1)) + 12N + 36), where L is the wheelbase in feet and N is the number of axles, with an exception allowing two consecutive sets of tandem axles at 34,000 lb each. An axle may not carry more than 20,000 lb, and no two consecutive axles between 40 and 96 inches apart may carry more than 34,000 lb. ARM 18.8.431(1) sets it as the maximum allowable gross weight for vehicle combinations hauling divisible loads, which makes it the general ceiling for a reducible load rather than a permit allowance or a road-list exception. The permit stack there is three deep: gross vehicle weight fees paid for the total weight carried, a term restricted route and oversize permit at an annual fee, and a single-trip overweight permit before each trip. The route is restricted. The thing not to assume is that those figures stop at the interstate line. Section 61-10-107 switches itself off on the interstate and defense highway system where applying it would cost the state federal funds, but that does not hand the road back to 80,000 lb. Elsewhere a state allowance above 80,000 lb generally has to stop at the interstate, because 23 U.S.C. § 127 caps it there; Montana’s pre-existing higher limits were grandfathered, and 23 CFR 658 appendix C carries the state’s entry at 137,800 lb under the memorandum and 131,060 lb for other combinations of that class. In Montana the high figures do not stop at the line.
Montana Code § 61-10-107 and § 61-10-124; general gross weight at ARM 18.8.431(1); Interstate figures at 23 CFR 658 appendix C. Seasonal and frost restrictions were NOT established for this state and none is stated.
A salvage vehicle is defined as one damaged to the extent that the owner, an insurer, or somebody acting for the owner determines that the cost of parts and labour makes it uneconomical to repair. The rebuilt inspection afterwards is about theft rather than condition: you present the vehicle, the salvage certificate or title, receipts or bills of sale establishing ownership, and the source of the component parts used to rebuild it.
Montana salvage definition at MCA § 61-3-210(8); rebuilt inspection at MCA § 61-3-212.