We buy trucks in Frazer

Three quite different minerals are worked within about four miles of here. Catanach Quarry takes broken limestone with sixteen people at the edge of the place, and Allan Myers Portable, about a mile north, works soapstone as dimension stone with five.

The other two are rarer still. The Phoenixville row handles common clay and shale about 4 miles north, and the Oaks Plant, about 4 miles northeast, handles anthracite — the hard coal of the eastern fields rather than the bituminous of the west.

That soapstone operation is what makes the local fleet unusual. Dimension stone is cut, strapped and carried flat, so it needs deck and suspension rather than tipping gear, and a load is worth spoiling if it shifts.

So a small yard here often runs a flatbed beside a tri-axle and keeps both. Between Catanach Quarry at the edge of the place and Rheems Quarry about 5 miles out, the tipper work and the flat work rarely share a truck.

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 surroundings rather than the stone that complicate those runs. This is commuter country, and the roads carrying loaded quarry traffic were built for cars, so postings are common and closely enforced.

The exemption turns on purpose rather than distance. Over-posted-weight local traffic may exceed a posted limit unless the authority determines a damage risk, and status is proved by a bill of lading showing a destination on the posted road — so a load for Downingtown Quarry about 8 miles out is treated differently from one merely crossing.

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 three of those trades come to us. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers off the limestone. Flatbeds for the soapstone and dimension work. Day cabs and road tractors, rollbacks, box trucks, straight trucks, service bodies and the pickups and work trucks around a small yard.

Most of it works between Catanach Quarry, Rheems Quarry and Downingtown Quarry.

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.
• The deck is tired but the truck is sound.Around Allan Myers Portable that is what dimension work does to a flatbed, 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 collect from a quarry?Yes. Around Catanach Quarry and Rheems Quarry it is routine — give us the gate and tell us how the ground is.
• Do you need to come out?Not necessarily. We can buy it remotely and arrange the tow, come and drive it away, or take it if you bring it in.

Beyond a contract ending, the reasons are the ordinary ones. A retirement. An operator down to one truck. A machine parked behind a yard, insured for two years and turning no wheel.

Lots near Rheems Quarry and out toward Downingtown Quarry hold a few of them.