Allegheny County
Two military air units on one field
What sits here is aviation rather than extraction. Two separate military installations occupy the same airfield in this township — an Air National Guard unit and an Air Reserve station — which is unusual and which makes the field, not a mine or a mill, the largest thing nearby.
The industry proper is some way off. The Champion Refuse Disposal Area is about 6 miles southwest, the Aliquippa Mine works gypsum about 7 miles north-northwest, and the Scully yard is about 7 miles east-southeast.
Airfield freight is time-boxed, not heavy
Those two units generate a kind of trucking the rest of this county does not. Airfield and base freight is palletised, containerised and scheduled, so it moves in box trucks and dry vans rather than in tipping bodies, and the loads are light against the axle ratings.
So the equipment here is high-mileage and low-stress, which is a good combination. Between the Scully yard about 7 miles east-southeast and the Aliquippa Mine about 7 miles the other way, the trucks we are asked about are usually sound under the miles.
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.
Seven miles in any direction, and hills in between
It is those seven-mile radii that put this township on other people’s roads for most of every run. In Pennsylvania the binding weight on a lane is frequently a posted figure rather than the general one, set by whoever owns the road.
The ownership is mostly local. Townships maintain 3,198 structures statewide against 2,599 held by counties, so on a run out toward the Champion Refuse Disposal Area, about 6 miles southwest, the plated structure belongs to the smallest of the three owners. The Aliquippa Mine lanes about 7 miles the other way are the same.
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 comes to us. Box trucks and straight trucks off the base and freight work. Day cabs and road tractors, flatbeds, rollbacks, dump trucks and aggregate haulers off the Aliquippa Mine lanes, service bodies and the pickups and work trucks around a hangar or a yard.
Most of it works between the Scully yard, the Aliquippa Mine and the Champion Refuse Disposal Area.
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 Carnot-Moon
- 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 has very high miles but an easy life.That is the usual pattern here and it counts in the truck’s favour rather than against it.
- 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 parked on secured ground.Then we need a gate and a contact. Around the airfield that is routine and we work to their schedule.
- How far is the nearest industry?About 6 miles southwest to the Champion Refuse Disposal Area and about 7 miles to the Aliquippa Mine. Nothing heavy is close, which is why so much of the work here is airfield freight.
Why people call
Beyond a freight contract moving, the reasons are the familiar ones. A retirement. A driver whose medical did not renew. One truck too many after a slow quarter.
Lots near the Aliquippa Mine and out toward the Champion Refuse Disposal Area, about 6 miles southwest, hold a few in that position.