We buy trucks in Grand Island

What is recorded here is quickly said. One rail yard about 2 miles north-east, a liquid bulk terminal about 4 miles north-east, and a Guard aviation support and readiness centre at the same distance. That is everything inside 20 miles. The commodities handled at the yard could not be determined from any source read for the research, and are not guessed at.

The next facilities in any direction are 23 miles and more: the Hastings yard about 23 miles south, another yard at Glenvil about 26 miles south with a Guard training site two miles from it, the Grigsby East Pit at Central City about 27 miles north-east with 6 people, and the Ravenna yard about 29 miles west. A Werner Construction crusher is filed to this county but sits about 23 miles south, so it is worth treating as a Hastings-end operation rather than a local one.

Those middle-distance places are all small. The largest recorded workforce within about fifty miles is Preferred Sands at Genoa, about 44 miles north-east in Nance County, with 58 people — nearly ten times the next biggest. After that it drops away again: Broadfoot about 42 miles south-west with 2 and the Turkey Creek Pit about 43 miles with 2, both near Kearney in Buffalo County.

So the working radius here is wide and the density is low, and that changes the honest answer to "will you come out". Frequently we do not need to: we buy the truck remotely and arrange the tow, which on a 40-mile leg is the straightforward path rather than the fallback. Coming out to drive it away, coming out to tow it, or you bringing it in are all still real options.

A radius that wide runs straight into the way this state writes its harvest rule, because the rule is a radius too. Grain and other seasonally harvested products may run 15 per cent over the ordinary limits on any tandem axle, any group of axles and on gross weight — but only on defined journeys and only up to 70 miles. Field to storage, market or a stockpile in the field; or stockpile or farm storage to market or factory.

Everything inside that radius from here is covered without a permit. Genoa at 44 miles and Kearney at 43 are both well within it; a run that keeps going is not, and a permit costs $25 for each 30-day period and can be renewed up to four times. Underneath it all the gross-weight table tops out at 95,000 lb, reached only at a group of seven consecutive axles spanning 60 feet, while any group of two or more axles on the interstate is held to 80,000 lb unless the Director-State Engineer authorises more. The gap between those two figures is a matter of permit and axle count rather than of which road is under the wheels — the federal record puts the same 95,000 lb on the Interstate System.

Harvest allowance at Neb. Rev. Stat. § 60-6,301(5); gross-weight table at § 60-6,294(3), with the Interstate System figure at 23 CFR 658 appendix C. Information, not legal advice.

That same wide radius means trucks out here often sit a long time before anyone deals with the paperwork, so the title rules are worth having straight. The rule is one sentence — we need a title, unless the truck is old enough that it never had one — and the rest is a fix. A counter replacement if it is lost, a bonded route if there never was one. Neither stops a sale.

What matters here is what a brand proves. An owner may voluntarily designate a vehicle as salvage and take a branded title without regard to the damage, the age or the value of the vehicle under Neb. Rev. Stat. § 60-171(7)(b). So a salvage brand here does not by itself establish that the truck was badly damaged. The ordinary test is 75 per cent of retail value at the time of the damage on a late model vehicle, meaning the model year is the year of the damage or one of the six before it, and a vehicle returning to the road afterwards is issued a title branded previously salvaged.

Neb. Rev. Stat. § 60-146 (inspection) and the salvage and voluntary-designation provisions, via the node fact bundle. Information, not legal advice.

The country around here runs different iron, and whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change — we buy all of them. Grain hauls and farm trucks off the fields and the elevators. Day cabs and road tractors on the long legs to Hastings and Kearney. Tankers off the terminal work, dump trucks and aggregate haulers on the runs to the Grigsby East Pit and Preferred Sands, flatbeds, box trucks, service bodies and the pickups that follow the rest of it around.

Most of it works out of three places inside about 4 miles, then reaches 23 to 44 miles to find the next one.

• 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 out this far?Often we do not need to. We buy it remotely and arrange the tow, and where the nearest facility in any direction is 23 miles off and the biggest is 44, that is frequently the straightforward answer rather than a last resort. We also come to you and drive it away, come to you and tow it, or you drive it to us.
• 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 Hall County and a long way past it — south to Hastings, west to Ravenna, north-east to Central City and Genoa in Nance County. Distance has not stopped us yet.

Beyond the trucks themselves, the reasons repeat. A DOT physical didn’t go the way it used to. A grain contract that filled the season for nine years went to somebody else. The truck is just sitting beside a shed, and every month it sits is another month of insurance on something that isn’t turning a wheel.

The lots around the yard and the terminal north-east of town, the farmyards out toward the Grigsby East Pit at Central City 27 miles north-east, and the ground down toward Hastings 23 miles south, hold a fair number of trucks in exactly that position.

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.