We buy trucks in Mifflinburg

The Mine Safety and Health Administration records 8 employees at the limestone quarry attached to this borough, with its coordinate 1.87 miles from the Census centre.

The county holds three rows on this list and every one of them is crushed stone — no coal, no sand, no rail, no plant of any kind. That single-commodity record is unusual, and it means a truck based here is working one kind of load or leaving the county to find another.

Beyond the quarry, the road pattern here runs the opposite way to most of this state. Within ten miles the National Bridge Inventory records 128 structures and 8 coded below legal loads — and 5 of those 8 are county-maintained against only 2 of the townships’.

That inverts the usual picture. In most of the counties on this list the townships own the restricted crossings and the county figure describes a fraction of the network; in this valley the county owns them, and Union restricts seven of the twenty-six bridges it maintains against one of its townships’.

The nearest restricted crossing is 1.46 miles away. The lowest rating among them is about eight US tons and the lowest clearing the commercial floor about eighteen, so on a loaded run the county road is the one to check.

Those county crossings bind long before 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.

That valley is the reason for the pattern. This sits in the Susquehanna between Sunbury and Lewisburg, where the North and West Branches meet and the limestone of the Great Valley’s northern extension is quarried on both sides of the water.

The Paxtonville Quarry works 7.4 miles off with 22 people, the Winfield Quarry 9.9 miles away with 9 and the Lewisburg Quarry 10.8 miles out with 16. Further on, sand loads 13.1 miles away, a yard sits 13.5 miles off and the Mandata Quarry works 17.9 miles out with 26.

Road networks in this valley are large — a couple of hundred structures within ten miles at every one of these sites — so there are usually several ways round a posted crossing, which is not true everywhere in this state.

Whichever bank the work was on, 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. Dumps of every axle count, flatbeds and day cabs, rollbacks, box trucks, grain and livestock bodies, service bodies and pickups.

With one commodity in the county, a truck here has usually mixed quarry work with farm work to keep busy. Between the Paxtonville Quarry 7.4 miles off and the Lewisburg Quarry 10.8 miles away the lanes are moderate, and neither history counts against a truck.

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 did farm work as well as stone.The usual history in this county. Around the Winfield Quarry most of them did both.
• It has sat behind the barn for years.Fine. Tell us where it sits and what the access is like.
• 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 county working one commodity has a thin second-hand market, so a truck that stops suiting the quarry does not always find a farm that wants it.

Beyond that it is holdings changing hands, retirements and estates, from the Paxtonville Quarry 7.4 miles off to the Mandata Quarry 17.9 miles away.