We buy trucks in Media

The dimension-stone quarry attached to this borough reports 7 employees and is carried as a surface operation under MSHA identifier 3600164, with its coordinate 1.17 miles from the Census centre.

Dimension stone in this state usually means the bluestone district in the north-east corner, and this is not that. This is south-eastern Pennsylvania, inside the Philadelphia orbit, and none of the bluestone findings carry over: different rock, different market, different freight.

Those dimension-stone operations make the point better than any argument. The Rolling Rock Pit carries 38 people, the largest dimension-stone operation on the state record, and the smallest on that record carries 2 — a spread of nineteen to one across sites doing recognisably the same work, and every one of them thin beyond the basic mining record.

So the payroll figure is a poor guide to how much freight a site generates, and this page does not use it as one. What it does say is that a seven-person quarry is normal in Delaware County rather than marginal.

The operation falls under the federal training part covering surface stone, which requires site-specific hazard awareness training for delivery drivers before work at each site — each site, not once.

Cut stone or crushed, it leaves under one 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.

Beyond the quarry the district is industrial in a way this borough is not. The Pyramid Quarry works 4.4 miles off, Glen Mills works granite 6.5 miles away at Chester Heights with 32 people, and a transloading yard sits 4.7 miles out at Chester.

Then it becomes water. A port sits 5.2 miles off at Eddystone, another 8.0 miles away at Colwyn, a third 8.3 miles out, and a fourth across the river at Paulsboro in New Jersey. A refinery row sits 7.5 miles off at Boothwyn and rail terminals at Philadelphia 8.6 miles away and Yeadon 8.8 miles out.

Granite is harder and more abrasive than the limestone most of this lane runs on, and cut stone is a slow, heavy, awkward load rather than a bulk one. Both wear a truck differently from aggregate work.

Beyond the docks, 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. Flatbeds and step decks off the cut stone, dumps, day cabs, rollbacks, box trucks, straight trucks, service bodies and pickups.

Cut stone rides in slabs and blocks and it punishes a deck, a headboard and the tie-down points. Between Glen Mills 6.5 miles off and the port at Eddystone 5.2 miles away the runs are short and the loads are dense, so the wear is structural rather than mechanical.

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 gouged from slab work.Expected on cut stone and we allow for it. Around Chester Heights every deck looks like that.
• It only ever did short local runs.Ordinary this close to the ports, with Eddystone 5.2 miles off. Low mileage does not mean an easy life and we look at the truck itself.
• 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.

A seven-person quarry replaces a truck when it has to, not on a schedule, and when it does there is rarely another local buyer for a deck set up to carry slabs.

The rest is the ordinary run of it between Chester Heights 6.5 miles off and Yeadon 8.8 miles away — retirements, estates and contracts that ended.