We buy trucks in Masontown

The Mine Safety and Health Administration records 4 employees at the limestone quarry attached to this borough, and its coordinate lies 0.78 miles from the Census centre of the place.

It sits in the Connellsville and Uniontown district of the Pittsburgh coal seam, where coal and coke were the industry from the 1880s until the middle of the last century. The limestone here is worked from the beds above and below that seam, so the quarry and the mine are the same geology read at different depths.

That old industry left a road network denser than the present population supports, and an old one. Fayette County maintains 49 bridges of its own and its townships 55, and 19 of the county’s and 18 of the townships’ fail on load — thirty-seven restricted local structures, close to an even split.

That split is the unusual part. In Butler County the county owns 114 bridges to its townships’ 26, and in Armstrong 30 to 35 with far fewer restricted. Here both tiers are substantial and both are heavily restricted.

It matters because the posting power and the bond sit with whichever authority owns the road. Where both tiers own restricted crossings in quantity, one lane can answer to both, and a permit from one is no help with the other.

Those local limits bind well under the 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 crossings are counted across a state line: of the 183 structures within ten miles of this quarry, two are West Virginia’s, so the count is taken from every state file with structures inside the radius rather than from Pennsylvania alone. Nineteen are coded below legal loads, ten of them county-maintained, and the nearest is 2.04 miles away.

The working geography crosses the same line. The Lake Lynn Quarry works 9.2 miles off at Smithfield with 60 people, a limestone operation 11.3 miles away at Cheat Lake in West Virginia, the Humphrey No. 7 Mine 12.0 miles out at Star City and a rail yard 12.3 miles off there too.

Back on this side, Coolspring Mining works 14.0 miles away at Uniontown with 44 people, a strip mine 5.7 miles off at Buffington, and the Wymps Gap surface mine 9.1 miles out.

Across that line, our side of the paperwork is short. 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 hauled limestone and later ran bituminous coal is an ordinary history here, and between the Lake Lynn Quarry 9.2 miles off and Coolspring Mining 14.0 miles away the routes bend around posted crossings rather than running straight. That puts hours on a truck faster than it puts miles on it.

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.
• It is titled in West Virginia.Ordinary this close to the line, with Star City 12.0 miles off. Tell us where it is titled and we will work with it.
• Coal dust and stone dust both.Expected around the Wymps Gap surface mine and the coal here. It does not count against the truck.
• 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.
• How are we paid?Cash or electronic payment, at pickup.

Civil work in a district like this is remediation-led and programme-funded rather than growth-led, so the year is flatter and a truck is kept until the programme it served ends rather than until a season turns.

Beyond that it is retirements and estates, from Buffington 5.7 miles off out to Uniontown 14.0 miles away.