We buy trucks in Lenape Heights

The Mine Safety and Health Administration records 20 employees at the limestone quarry attached to this place, held by Buffalo Limestone. Its coordinate lies 2.65 miles from the Census centre, attached by falling back to the nearest centroid rather than by sitting inside the place.

That is a mid-sized operation by the standards of this county, where payrolls on the record run from one person to sixty-eight.

Beyond the quarry, the roads are easier here than the coal country west of them. Within ten miles the National Bridge Inventory records 140 structures and only 5 coded below legal loads — and of those 5, none at all are county-maintained while 3 belong to townships.

The nearest of them is 6.32 miles away, which is a long way for a restriction to sit from a working quarry. The lowest rating among them is about eight US tons, and the lowest that clears the commercial floor is about twenty-three.

So the binding constraint here is not the crossing. It is grade and distance, and the fact that the authority posting the few restricted bridges is the township rather than the county.

Above all those local numbers sits one general 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, 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.

Those township roads run out towards soft coal. The Crooked Creek preparation plant is 14.0 miles off and the Crooked Creek mine 14.1 miles away at Creekside with 57 people on it, while Fulton Run works 14.2 miles out at Shelocta.

Nearer in, the Dutch Run workings sit 10.0 and 10.7 miles away and the Parkwood Mine 10.3 miles off with 68 people — the largest payroll within fifteen miles of this place among the sites that report one.

Coal preparation is a different rhythm from a quarry. It runs to a plant schedule rather than to a construction season, so the work is steadier through the year and the trucks accumulate hours more evenly.

Whichever of those paid for the truck, 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.

The offer does not depend on which truck you have. Tandem and tri-axle dumps, flatbeds and day cabs, rollbacks, box trucks, straight trucks, service bodies and pickups.

A body that ran limestone and later carried bituminous coal out towards Shelocta is ordinary here, and it leaves two different residues for a buyer to find. Between the Parkwood Mine 10.3 miles off and the Crooked Creek mine 14.1 miles away the runs are real distances rather than a shuttle.

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.
• There is coal dust and stone dust both.Ordinary between the Dutch Run workings and the limestone here. It does not count against the truck.
• It ran for a preparation plant, not a quarry.Around the Crooked Creek mine that is most of the work. No difference to how we buy it.
• 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 to buy it?No. We can come and drive it away, come and tow it, buy it remotely and arrange the tow, or you can bring it to us.

Coal work and quarry work want different trucks, and when a contract moves from one to the other the truck often does not follow it.

Those trucks end up standing between Creekside 14.1 miles off and Shelocta 14.2 miles away, along with the usual retirements and estates.