Indiana County
Seven coal operations inside ten miles
The ground east of this borough is worked hard. Knob Creek employs twenty-one about 5 miles southeast, the Parkwood Mine sixty-eight about 6 miles, the Dutch Run Coal Preparation Plant eighteen about 9 miles, and Dutch Run itself nineteen at about the same distance.
Two more are larger still. Fulton Run works eighteen about 9 miles off and the Crooked Creek Mine fifty-seven about 10 miles away. All of it is bituminous — the soft coal of the western fields, not the anthracite of the east.
Soft coal moves in volume
That distinction matters to a truck. Bituminous is lighter per cubic yard than anthracite, so a body fills before it reaches its legal weight rather than after, and the limiting factor is space rather than the scale.
So the equipment here runs high-sided and the wear is on suspension and tyres rather than on frames. Between the Parkwood Mine about 6 miles southeast and the Crooked Creek Mine about 10 miles away, that is the pattern on nearly everything we are asked about.
Pennsylvania weight law
One general number, and a great many local ones
Those roads run under a single statutory ceiling. Under 75 Pa.C.S. § 4941 the maximum gross weight for a vehicle or combination on a Pennsylvania highway is 80,000 lb. The only allowance found in the section is 2,000 lb for vehicles fuelled primarily by compressed or liquefied natural gas or powered primarily by electric battery.
No commodity relief for stone, sand or natural resources was found in that section as consulted. That is not the same as establishing there is none — Pennsylvania runs a large permit apparatus under Title 67 — and it is written here as an open question rather than as an answer.
The penalty is a formula rather than a flat fine. A driver over the maximum or registered gross weight commits a summary offence and on conviction pays $75, plus $75 for each 500 lb or part of it beyond 3,000 lb over the limit. So the first 3,000 lb over is effectively a flat charge and everything past that climbs in steps.
75 Pa.C.S. § 4941; 67 Pa. Code ch. 189. Information, not legal advice, and only as current as the date the rule file was last verified.
Mine roads meeting township roads
It is the last mile of those hauls that runs into posting, once a loaded truck leaves the site and joins the public network. In Pennsylvania the binding weight there is frequently a posted figure rather than the general one.
The cost falls on the hauler. A permittee accepts financial responsibility for maintenance beyond normal wear and posts security against it, so on a lane between the Dutch Run Coal Preparation Plant and the Hoover Stone Quarry Llc about 8 miles south-southwest, the permit is a balance-sheet item.
Pennsylvania paperwork
We need a title — unless it never had one
Beyond the weight rules, that is the whole of it in one sentence. Everything after it is a fix rather than a category. If the title is lost, there is a counter replacement. If the truck never had one, there is a bonded route. Both are ordinary and neither stops a sale.
Two Pennsylvania rules are worth knowing because they run the opposite way to most states. There is no fixed total-loss percentage in statute: under 75 Pa.C.S. § 1232 the test is whether repair cost plus salvage value equals or exceeds actual cash value. And PennDOT defines a salvage vehicle by comparing the cost of repairs to the value of the repaired vehicle — every other state on file compares it to the value before the damage.
The other one protects old equipment. The salvage definition does not include a vehicle that would qualify as antique or classic but for its lack of restoration or maintenance. So a truck old enough to be antique cannot be called salvage merely because nobody restored it.
75 Pa.C.S. § 1232; PennDOT salvage and reconstructed-vehicle definitions. Information, not legal advice.
What we buy here
All of it, and hard-used equipment especially. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers first, because that is what these mines run. Day cabs and road tractors, flatbeds, rollbacks, box trucks, service bodies and the pickups and work trucks that follow a mine crew.
Most of it works between Knob Creek, the Parkwood Mine and the Hoover Stone Quarry Llc.
Whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change. We buy all of them.
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 Avonmore
- 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. Coal dust and rust are not the issue.
- The suspension is finished.Around the Parkwood Mine and Fulton Run that is what high-sided coal work does, and it does not stop a sale.
- What about the title?We need one unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. Lost has a counter replacement; a bonded route covers the rest.
- Can you get it off a mine site?Usually. Tell us how the ground is around the Dutch Run side and we will bring what suits.
- Do you come out this far?We do, and we can also buy it remotely and arrange the tow without anyone driving out.
Why people call
Beyond a seam finishing, the reasons are the ordinary ones. A retirement. A back that has had enough. A truck left when somebody died and nobody in the family holds the licence.
Yards near the Crooked Creek Mine and out toward the Hoover Stone Quarry Llc hold a few in that position.