Montgomery County
One pit, one company, one MSHA record
The quarry here works crushed stone with 6 people, and the company that runs it carries the name of the village and appears on exactly one MSHA record in this state. That is the fact worth starting with, because almost nothing else in this district is like it.
The Perkiomenville Quarry about 4 miles north-west works traprock with 17 people, and the operator of that pit appears on nineteen MSHA records across Pennsylvania. Naceville Materials about 5 miles north-east works crushed stone with 14 under a company holding two.
A single-pit operator among multi-site ones
That difference is not cosmetic, it decides where a truck goes when the work stops. A company with pits across the state moves equipment between them; a company with one pit has nowhere to move it to, and the truck goes on the market instead.
So the small operators here are the ones that sell. The East Norriton Quarry about 9 miles south works with 3 people and the Blooming Glen Quarry about 11 miles north-east with 10, and both sit at that end of the scale.
Thirteen quarries, and the roads between them
That district is dense. The Mine Safety and Health Administration records thirteen quarries within 15 miles of this village, working traprock, limestone, sandstone and crushed stone, and the roads between them are township and borough roads rather than highways.
So the posted crossing matters more here than the general figure does. The Spring House Quarry about 11 miles south-east works limestone with 15 and the Martin Stone Quarries about 13 miles north-west works sandstone with 37, which is about the width of the working area.
Tri-axle dumps and aggregate haulers off the stone, flatbeds, day cabs and road tractors, rollbacks, service bodies and the pickups every small operation keeps beside its big truck.
Between the pit here and the Naceville Materials pit about 5 miles north-east the work turns over on its own cycle, and at six-person scale one truck is a large share of what the operation owns.
- We are the only truck the company has.That is the normal situation at this end of the district and it is exactly the sale we are set up for.
- It has only ever worked locally.Most of what moves here runs a few miles between a pit and a job. Short local work is the usual history on these trucks.
When the contract ends there is no second site to send the truck to, which is the whole difference between them and the companies working around them.
So it stands between the East Norriton Quarry about 9 miles south and the Martin Stone Quarries about 13 miles north-west, on ground that has no further use for it.