We buy trucks in East Pittsburgh

This is the densest rail geography anywhere in this lane. A transfer row sits in the borough, Thomson Works about three-tenths of a mile off, a coal dock about six-tenths, a second Thomson row under a different carrier at the same distance, and Monongahela Junction and Kenney both about a mile and a half away.

The heavy industry is right underneath them. Thomson Works is a steel operation rather than a freight yard proper, and the Clairton Plant sits about 4 miles south with a Watco liquid bulk terminal about 3 miles south-southwest.

That concentration produces a truck whose history the odometer cannot describe. When Thomson Works is three-tenths of a mile away and the coal dock six-tenths, a full shift can be twelve miles of running and eight hours of loading, waiting and shunting.

So hours are the real measure and the mileage is nearly meaningless. Between Thomson Works and Monongahela Junction about a mile and a half apart, a tractor can be finished at a number that would look barely used on a highway fleet.

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.

It is the shape of the valley that removes the alternatives. Turtle Creek runs narrow, and everything above the rail rows is hillside, so a loaded truck has one route and a posting on it is a closure.

In Pennsylvania the binding figure on such a lane is usually a posted one, and 3,198 of the state’s local structures are township-maintained against 2,599 county-maintained. A permit brings an excess-maintenance agreement and posted security with it before the first load moves. The lanes down to the Clairton Plant, about 4 miles south, are the ones that matter here.

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.

All of that iron is iron we buy. Day cabs and road tractors doing transfer work. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers, tankers off the Watco runs, flatbeds, rollbacks, box trucks, straight trucks, service bodies and the pickups and work trucks around a mill gate.

Most of it works between Thomson Works, the Clairton Plant and the Watco terminal.

Whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change. We buy all of them.

• 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.
• Can you get it out of a mill yard?Usually. Around Thomson Works and the Clairton Plant, about 4 miles south, those yards have their own access rules — give us a gate and a contact and we work to them.
• Low miles but twenty years old.That is the standard pattern in this valley and it does not put us off. Hours matter more than the odometer here.
• 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.
• Do you have to come out?Not always. We can buy it remotely and arrange the tow, come and drive it away, or take it if you bring it in.

Beyond a mill schedule changing, the reasons are personal. A retirement. A hauler who lost the one contract that filled the week. A back that has had enough of the valley.

Lots near the Clairton Plant and out toward Monongahela Junction, about a mile and a half off, hold a fair number.