We buy trucks in Arthurtown

Two rail-yard rows are attached here and they are close enough together to be mistaken for one. The row recorded as Andrews sits 0.42 miles from the centroid; the row recorded as Andrews-Columbia sits 0.54 miles from it. Both are under Norfolk Southern, both are inside the place rather than attached from outside, and the two coordinates are about 0.3 miles apart.

They are two rows and not one duplicate. What each handles could not be determined from any source read for the batch, and neither gets a commodity here on the strength of a name.

Every one of the 2,459 rail-yard rows in this dataset is recorded as the mean of a track polyline’s vertices rather than as a surveyed facility point, so a yard is placed where its track averages out and not where its gate is.

City-pages node list, rail-yard rows; U.S. Census 2024 Gazetteer, South Carolina places.

Those two names are worth reading carefully, because between them they describe three different places. Both coordinates fall inside Columbia city, which holds a city page of its own, while the rows stay attached here. The Norfolk Southern row 0.54 miles out says Columbia in its own name and is the more honest of the two about where it is.

And ninety miles away there is a third row called Andrews, under CSX Transportation, in the town of Andrews — a different place that happens to share the name. Measured, that pair is 90.5 miles apart, which makes it a coincidence of naming rather than a fault in the record.

The practical version for a seller: a yard name is not an address. Tell us the town.

City-pages node list, rail-yard rows; U.S. Census 2024 Gazetteer, South Carolina places.

Those names aside, a loaded truck out of either yard runs under one statute. S.C. Code § 56-5-4140 sets a single axle at 20,000 pounds and two axles four to seven feet apart at 35,200, both written as including all enforcement tolerances, with 80,000 pounds gross on the interstate.

§ 56-5-4160 then carries a ten per cent enforcement tolerance that applies to those limits. It is general rather than a commodity permit, but the axle figures are printed as already including it, so the relief attaches to the gross and not to the axle.

Unprocessed forest products get fifteen per cent instead, on non-interstate routes only. The same section lifts the axle-spacing requirements for dump trucks, dump trailers, trucks carrying agricultural products, concrete mixing trucks, fuel oil trucks and line trucks, at 20,000 pounds per axle plus scale tolerances.

What was not established: the general gross and axle schedule off the interstate, seasonal restrictions, whether a posted-bridge list is published, and the bridge layer here, which was not searched. That absence is a gap rather than a finding.

S.C. Code § 56-5-4140 and § 56-5-4160. Information, not legal advice.

That gap does not reach the title, which is settled. We need one unless the truck is old enough that it never had one; a lost title has a counter replacement, and where none exists there is a bonded route.

§ 56-19-480 makes “salvage vehicle” and “vehicle declared to be a total loss” explicit synonyms, and sets both at repair cost — parts and reasonable market charges for labour — reaching seventy-five per cent of the truck’s market value immediately before the damage. No age limb. § 56-19-485 brands the cause as well as the fact.

The rebuilt inspection is a power the department may use rather than a step every truck goes through, so nobody can tell you in advance whether a given truck will be inspected. The application asks instead for the source of the parts used and what they cost.

The lien clock and the lien release, plate return on a sale, and apportioned registration were not established for South Carolina, and nothing is written here about them.

S.C. Code § 56-19-480 and § 56-19-485. Information, not legal advice.

None of that narrows what we will look at. Day cabs and road tractors, dump trucks and aggregate haulers, flatbeds and rollbacks, tankers, service bodies, box trucks and straight trucks, and the pickups and work trucks that go with a crew.

Box trucks and straight trucks are not a rail-yard thing in particular — they are everywhere. They are on the list because we buy them here too.

Whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change. We buy all of them. The two Norfolk Southern yards 0.42 miles and 0.54 miles from the middle of the place, and the streets that serve them, are where most of it turns up.

• 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 a disqualifier.
• The engine is out of it. Is that different?Yes, and that is the line. A tired engine is fine; an engine that has been pulled out and sold means we can’t buy the truck.
• What about the title?We need one unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. Lost titles have a counter replacement; where none exists there’s a bonded route.
• Am I in Arthurtown or in Columbia?Possibly both, depending on the line. The two yards on this page are attached here and their coordinates fall inside Columbia city. It makes no difference to a sale — give us the street and we work from that.
• Do you come out here?Yes — both Norfolk Southern yards, at 0.42 miles and 0.54 miles out, the streets around them, and the towns either side. We come to you and drive it away, we come to you and tow it, we buy it remotely and arrange the tow, or you drive it to us.

Those questions come up because the reasons for selling are mostly personal. Retiring. A medical that went the wrong way. A contract that ended. A truck sitting on a yard since somebody stopped driving it, costing insurance every month it does not turn a wheel.

Around the two Norfolk Southern yards, 0.42 miles and 0.54 miles from the middle of the place, the same trucks come up for sale for the same reasons.

Most of those aren’t happy reasons, and we don’t treat them like they are. Somebody wants a straight answer and the truck gone by the end of the week. That’s what we’re here for.