Delaware County
Two miles back from every berth
This place sits inland of the river industry rather than on it. The Trainer Refinery is at the edge of it, but Monroe Energy is about 2 miles east-southeast, the Marcus Hook row about 2 miles east, and the Stoney Creek Yard about 3 miles away.
The stone is closer than the water. The Pyramid Quarry works broken stone with seven people about 3 miles north-northeast, and the Media Quarry Co. Inc. cuts dimension stone about 8 miles north-northeast.
The town the refinery workers live in
That two-mile setback is what makes this place different from the berth towns. It is where the housing, the trades and the contractors are rather than where the tanks are, so the vehicles are service vehicles and light delivery rather than tank units.
So what we are asked about here is box trucks, work trucks and contractor flatbeds. Between the Pyramid Quarry about 3 miles north-northeast and SMS Transloading Services about 6 miles east, the heavy regulated work belongs to fleets based nearer the water.
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.
Suburban roads feeding an industrial river
It is the mixture rather than the weight that complicates routing here. Residential streets carry contractor traffic to an industrial waterfront, and the two do not fit each other well.
In Pennsylvania the binding weight on a lane is frequently a posted figure rather than the general one, and townships maintain 3,198 structures statewide against the counties’ 2,599. Between the Marcus Hook row and the Pyramid Quarry, a loaded truck may cross several authorities in three miles.
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 that lighter fleet comes to us. Box trucks and straight trucks off the trades and delivery work. Day cabs and road tractors, flatbeds, rollbacks, dump trucks and aggregate haulers off the Pyramid Quarry lanes, service bodies and the pickups and work trucks a contractor keeps.
Most of it works between the Trainer Refinery, the Pyramid Quarry and the Media Quarry Co. Inc.
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 Boothwyn
- 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.
- It is a contractor’s truck, not a tanker.That is most of what comes out of this place and it is exactly what we buy.
- 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.
- It is on a residential street.Say so when you call and we will plan around it, or buy it remotely and arrange the tow instead.
- How far out do you come?All of this county and into Chester County and beyond. We are around the Pyramid Quarry and the Marcus Hook row about 3 miles east most weeks.
Why people call
Beyond a trade going quiet, the reasons are the familiar ones. A retirement. A driver whose medical did not renew. A truck idle behind a building for two winters, insured and earning nothing.
Lots near the Pyramid Quarry and out toward the Stoney Creek Yard hold a few of them.