Fayette County
A sixty-person quarry in a small borough
The operation here is large for the place it sits in. Lake Lynn Quarry 1366 works broken limestone with sixty people at the edge of the borough, which is more than most of the pits in this lane employ between them.
Three smaller ones sit close by. Wymps Gap Surface Mine works four people about 2 miles out, Buckeye Stone Company twelve about 2 miles, and the Rose Mine four about 9 miles away.
A big pit hires small haulers
That size difference is what shapes the local fleet. A sixty-person quarry produces far more stone than it can move on its own trucks, so it buys haulage from the small outfits around it rather than running everything itself.
So this borough has one large customer and a great many one and two-truck sellers. Between the Buckeye Stone Company about 2 miles off and the Rose Mine about 9 miles away, almost every call we get is from an owner-driver.
Pennsylvania weight law
One general number, and a great many local ones
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.
The state line is ten miles south
It is the border rather than the distance that complicates those runs. The nearest rail is the Maidsville row about 11 miles west-southwest and it is in West Virginia, as is the Decker’s Creek Limestone Company operation about 11 miles away.
Inside Pennsylvania the general ceiling is 80,000 lb gross and the binding number on a lane is frequently a posted one set by a township. Across the line the posting authority, the permit and the bonding are all somebody else’s, and a hauler working both sides deals with two systems every week.
Pennsylvania paperwork
We need a title — unless it never had one
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.
What we buy here
All of it, and single trucks especially. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers first, because that is what these pits run. Day cabs and road tractors, flatbeds, rollbacks, box trucks, service bodies and the pickups and work trucks that follow a quarry crew.
Most of it works between the Buckeye Stone Company, the Rose Mine and the Humphrey No. 7 Mine about 10 miles west-southwest.
Whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change. We buy all of them.
We buy complete trucks. If the engine, transmission, doors, rear ends, drive shafts, wheels or anything under the hood have been removed, we can’t buy it. Small things — a missing bumper — are fine.
Straight answers
The questions we get asked in Smithfield
- 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 the issue.
- It is titled in West Virginia.Common about 10 miles from that line and not an obstacle. Tell us which state the paperwork is in and we will work from there.
- I am an owner-driver with one truck.That is nearly everyone around the Buckeye Stone Company, and one truck is a perfectly normal call.
- 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.
- Can you collect from a quarry floor?Usually. Tell us how the ground is around the Wymps Gap Surface Mine side and we will bring what suits.
Why people call
Beyond a pit finishing a phase, the reasons are the ordinary ones. A retirement. A back that has had enough. A truck left when somebody died and nobody in the family holds the licence.
Yards near the Rose Mine and out toward the Buckeye Stone Company, about 9 miles apart, hold a few in that position.