Niagara County
A twenty-two-man quarry, and the first bad crossing is the same distance out
The row attached to Lockport is a crushed-stone quarry MSHA records with 22 employees, 1.46 miles from the Census centroid. It joins NYSDOT’s approved source register 0.06 miles away — effectively on the same ground — as a stonefill source under the Amrize name, the same operator that runs the cement works down at Ravena.
There is a coincidence in the numbers worth noticing rather than reading anything into: the pit sits 1.46 miles from the middle of the city, and the nearest restricted structure sits 1.47 miles from the pit. The first crossing a loaded truck has to think about is about as far out as the city is.
The road out of it
And ten restrictions in 148 is a picked-over road
That closeness comes with company. Within ten miles the 2025 National Bridge Inventory records 148 structures, eight coded posted for load and ten coded below legal loads, two of them county-maintained.
The lowest operating rating among them is 7.3 tonnes, which is under the empty weight of a tandem dump, so nothing commercial crosses it at all and it never appears in a truck’s week. The one that binds a working truck is 13.6 tonnes, about 15.0 US tons, admitting roughly 2.6 tonnes of stone.
That is a tight cap on a busy road, and with only two of the ten belonging to Niagara County there is no single office to ask about the rest — the nearest of them being 1.47 miles from the gate.
FHWA National Bridge Inventory 2025; items 21, 41, 64 and 70. Ratings are the gross weight of the rating vehicle, not a payload.
New York weight law
Which a permit does nothing about
Which is the same gap every pit town in this lane runs into.
Vehicle and Traffic Law § 385 sets a maximum of 80,000 lb or less depending on axle spacing, and above legal weight the owner obtains a divisible load overweight permit from NYSDOT. There is no list of favoured commodities in it — stone and aggregate are divisible loads by definition. An overweight move that is not also over-dimensional, is within 125% of legal weight and can hold traffic-flow speed is not restricted as to times or days of travel.
Beneath the permit the state allows 22,400 lb on a single axle and 36,000 lb on two consecutive axles under eight feet, against federal figures of 20,000 lb and 34,000 lb, and federal limits govern the interstate system.
A permit raises what the state will let you carry. It does not raise a 13.6-tonne rating on a crossing 1.47 miles from the gate.
N.Y. Veh. & Traf. Law § 385. Information, not legal advice.
New York paperwork
We need a title — unless it never had one
Beyond the roads, the paperwork comes down to that one sentence.
Everything after it is a fix rather than a category. A lost title has a counter replacement; where none exists there is a bonded route. New York reaches its salvage brand by four separate routes, and its seventy-five per cent repair-cost test applies only to a vehicle eight model years old or newer, so on an older truck it does not arise. Once applied the brand is permanent, and the DMV must examine a rebuilt vehicle for stolen parts before it can be registered or titled.
New York DMV, salvage and rebuilt-salvage titling. Information, not legal advice, and only as current as the date the rule file was last verified.
What we buy in Lockport
Those rules cover all of it, and all of it is iron we buy. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers off the Amrize ground 1.46 miles out. Mixers off the concrete end. Day cabs, flatbeds, box trucks, service bodies, and the work trucks and pickups that go out with a crew.
Whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change. We buy all of them, anywhere in Niagara County.
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 Lockport
- 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.
- The engine is out of it. Is that different?Yes, and that is the line. A tired engine is fine; an engine that has been pulled out and sold means we can’t buy the truck.
- 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; where none exists there’s a bonded route.
- It has always run part loaded.Expected. The binding crossing 1.47 miles from the pit admits about 2.6 tonnes of stone, so a full load was rarely on offer and it is not a sign of anything about the truck.
- Who posts the bridges round here?Mostly not Niagara County — only two of the ten restricted structures within ten miles are county-maintained, so the rest belong to towns or the state.
Why people call
Beyond a truck that has worn out on short loaded runs, the reasons are personal ones. Retiring. A contract that ended. A driver whose DOT physical didn’t go the way it used to.
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 — 22 employees on the Amrize ground 1.46 miles out is a decent-sized outfit for Niagara County, and even there trucks come up for sale.
New York weight and title rules current as of August 2026 — verify with the New York DMV and NYSDOT before acting on them. Sources: the New York Consolidated Laws, the New York DMV, NYSDOT approved source register, the FHWA National Bridge Inventory 2025, MSHA, plus the central node list.