We buy trucks in Johnstown

Three yards carry the Conemaugh name here, and they sit almost on top of one another. Add the Johnstown yard on Clinton Street, Minersville and Hornerstown and there are six inside a couple of miles, which tells you what this town was built to move.

The coal is still being worked. The Madison Mine, about 5 miles out, employs sixty-nine. Bird Refuse Pile is about 4 miles south with ten, and Challenger Yard about 8 miles with three. Vintondale Quarry runs sand and gravel about 8 miles north.

Those six yards sit at the bottom of a valley, and everything else sits above them. That is the defining fact for a truck in Cambria County: almost no loaded run starts or ends without a serious grade, and grades are what kill brakes, clutches and cooling systems.

So an engine rebuild at 400,000 miles is unremarkable here and a driveline is often on its second life. None of that stops us buying — it just means the odometer is the least interesting number on the truck.

The Madison Mine is about 5 miles out and Vintondale Quarry about 8 miles north, and neither road down is gentle.

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 those same grades that make posting hurt. A valley road has no parallel alternative, so a plated structure on it is not an inconvenience but a closure for anything loaded, and in Pennsylvania most local structures belong to townships rather than to the county.

The permit route exists but it is not free. A permittee accepts financial responsibility for maintenance beyond normal wear caused by the over-posted-weight vehicles, and posts security against it before the first load moves.

Madison Mine and Vintondale Quarry loads run exactly those lanes, and Cambria County townships own most of what they cross.

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. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers off the mine and pit work. Day cabs and road tractors, flatbeds, rollbacks, box trucks, straight trucks, service bodies, and the work trucks and pickups that go with a crew.

Most of it works out of the Madison Mine, Vintondale Quarry and the yards along Clinton Street.

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. Rust is not a disqualifier.
• The engine is out of it. Is that different?Yes, and that is the line. An engine that’s tired is fine; an engine that’s been pulled out and sold means we can’t buy the truck.
• What about the title?We need one unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. Lost titles have a counter replacement; where none exists there’s a bonded route.
• Do you come out this far?Yes. We come to you and drive it away, we come to you and tow it, we buy it remotely and arrange the tow, or you drive it to us — whichever is easiest for you.
• How far out do you come?All of Cambria County and into Somerset County and Indiana County. Distance has never stopped a sale.

Beyond the mines slowing down, the reasons are personal ones. A medical that went the wrong way. A back that has had enough of the hill. A truck sitting since a father stopped driving it, and nobody in the family wanting to be the one to scrap it.

Yards off Clinton Street and out toward Somerset County usually have one waiting.

Most of those aren’t happy reasons, and we don’t treat them like they are. Somebody wants a straight answer and the truck gone by the end of the week. That’s what we’re here for.