Clearfield County
Three counties inside sixteen miles
The working radius from this city crosses two county lines before it runs out. The Kocjancic mine sits about 10 miles north-west in Jefferson County, the Oyster Run job about 12 miles north in Elk County, and the Penfield Mine about 11 miles north-east back in this one.
Three counties inside sixteen miles means three separate posting authorities, and in this state it is the posting authority rather than the general limit that decides what a lane will carry. A route out of here can answer to a different set of plates every ten miles.
One short-line carrier across two coalfields
The yard at the edge of this city belongs to the Buffalo & Pittsburgh Railroad, and so does the yard at Coral about fifty miles south. That is one regional carrier serving two separate coal districts rather than a national one passing through.
It matters because a short line hauls what is local. The Brookville yard about 15 miles west and the Riker yard at Punxsutawney about 15 miles south-west sit on the same kind of traffic, and the road legs that feed all three are short and repeated.
Pennsylvania weight law
One general number, and a great many local ones
Whichever authority posts the road, the ceiling above it is one number. 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, coal 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.
Coal, sandstone and dimension stone on the same roads
Those short legs do not all carry the same material. The Penfield Mine works bituminous coal with sixteen people about 11 miles north-east and the Lady Jane Plant nine about 13 miles east, while the Oyster Run job takes crushed sandstone with four about 12 miles north.
Russell Stone Products cuts dimension sandstone with twenty-four about 14 miles south-east, which is a different trade again — slabs and blocks rather than loose aggregate, and flatbeds rather than dumps.
So the vehicles that come to us out of this city are not one fleet. They are three or four trades that happen to share a road network and a set of posted crossings.
Pennsylvania paperwork
We need a title — unless it never had one
Whichever trade the truck came from, the paperwork is the same. 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
Coal haulers and tri-axle dumps, flatbeds and stretch decks off the dimension stone, lowboys that moved plant between operations, day cabs and road tractors, rollbacks, service bodies and the pickups every mine road carries.
Between the Kocjancic mine about 10 miles north-west and the Lady Jane Plant about 13 miles east most of what we see has run short loaded legs on posted country roads for years, and that is an ordinary history rather than a hard one.
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 DuBois
- 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 worked in three different counties.That is normal from this city, and it makes no difference to us. One title, one truck, one offer.
- Do you collect from a mine road?Yes. Around the Penfield Mine and out toward Brookville we do it regularly — give us a contact for the gate.
- 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 a flatbed off the stone rather than a dump.Both are welcome. Russell Stone Products country produces plenty of the first kind and we buy them just the same.
Why people call
An operation on one side of a county line closes and the haulage that fed it has no equivalent on the other. With three authorities inside sixteen miles the work does not simply move across.
Those trucks stand between the Riker yard about 15 miles south-west and the Oyster Run job about 12 miles north, alongside the ordinary retirements and estates.