We buy trucks in Loraine

The operation recorded against this town is a portable crushing outfit carrying four people on the federal mine register, out in Mitchell County. Four people is one crew and, at most, a couple of trucks of its own.

The state environmental register does not corroborate the location. No active aggregate production registration sits within a mile of the coordinate; the nearest is 2.6 miles away.

Four things could explain that — a registration that has lapsed, one recorded at a different point, a coordinate that is simply inaccurate, or an operation that falls outside the registration definition — and this research did not establish which. So what can honestly be said is that two registers place the crushing work about two and a half miles apart.

That uncertainty is not academic; it is what a portable operation looks like on paper. Crushing that travels does not leave a fixed gate for trucks to queue at, so the equipment follows the job across Mitchell County and beyond rather than running a route.

Those cycles are uneven and they age a truck unevenly. A hard few weeks of hauling, then a stretch parked while the spread moves, is harder on seals, batteries and brakes than steady running would be, and none of it shows on the odometer. The 2.6 miles between the two recorded points is the only fixed distance on file here.

It also means the sale timing follows the contract rather than the calendar. When a crushing job finishes and the next does not follow, sound trucks come up quickly and cheaply held onto for no reason.

Those loads run under one statutory ceiling, and stone is conspicuously absent from the relief.

Texas sets gross weight at 80,000 lb, a single axle at 20,000 lb and a tandem at 34,000 lb — the plain federal figures, with no commodity variance of the kind Georgia and Kentucky grant.

What Texas grants instead is permits, and each is written for a named industry: ready-mixed concrete, fluid milk, timber, and super heavy single-trip. There is no permit named for aggregate, stone, sand or quarry products. A stone hauler here gets the general permit and nothing else, while a ready-mix truck sits on the list — two trades a reader might treat as one, on opposite sides of the line.

The general permit adds ten per cent on the axle and five per cent on gross, and it carries a bond and liability for actual damage to load-restricted roads. On a load-zoned road the permitted weight is ten per cent less than the maximum, so the two percentages run in opposite directions and must never be added together.

Tex. Transp. Code § 621.101; Chapter 623 permits. Information, not legal advice.

Beyond what a truck weighs, what it is called on paper is the other thing worth settling early.

We need a title unless the truck never had one. Lost titles have a counter replacement and there is a bonded route where no title exists, so this is a step rather than an obstacle.

The salvage test is a comparison: repair cost, including parts and labour, against the vehicle’s actual cash value immediately before the damage. What Texas leaves out of that repair cost is unusual. Repainting comes out, and so does sales tax on the total. Missouri excludes airbags, tires, sound systems and hail damage; Kentucky excludes airbag reinstallation; Texas is the only state on file to exclude paintwork.

For a truck whose damage is mostly cosmetic, taking the paint out of the numerator moves the answer a long way from the brand.

Tex. Transp. Code § 501.091. Information, not legal advice, and only as current as the date the rule file was last verified.

All of that equipment is equipment we buy. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers off the crushing work, farm trucks and grain hauls, flatbeds, day cabs and road tractors, rollbacks, box trucks, straight trucks, service bodies, and the pickups that go with a crew.

Mitchell County is open country on the Interstate 20 line, which means a truck here is easier to move than the distances suggest — and the crushing ground is only 2.6 miles off the recorded point either way.

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. Rust is not a disqualifier.
• It sat between crushing jobs.That is normal for equipment tied to a portable spread in Mitchell County and it does not count against the truck. Tell us how long it sat.
• 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.
• Do you have to come out to look at it?Not necessarily. We can buy it remotely and arrange the tow, come to you and drive it away, come and tow it, or you can drive it to us. The 2.6 miles between the two recorded points makes no odds to that.

Beyond a crushing contract ending, the reasons are personal ones. Retiring. A medical that went the wrong way. A truck bought for one job that outlived the job.

Yards around the 2.6 miles of Mitchell County ground between the two records usually have one parked up.

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.