We buy trucks in San Angelo

The single rail-yard row attached to this city is recorded with operator Texas Pacifico Transportation Limited. That is worth a sentence on its own. Across the Texas rail yards researched for this project, 159 of the 169 that carry an operator at all name Union Pacific, BNSF Railway or Kansas City Southern; a shortline is a different kind of neighbour.

Its coordinate lies 4.08 miles from the city centroid, inside the place. What the yard actually handles could not be determined from any source read for it, and that is an absence rather than a zero.

The other row here is Goodfellow Air Force Base, 2.84 miles from the centroid and 4.03 miles from the yard. Its function, its acreage and its staffing were all recorded as not established — the research called the row thin and wrote that down instead of padding it.

So this page has two anchors and hard numbers for neither one’s output. What it does have is where they are, and that turns out to be the part that matters for trucks.

That shortline operator is the fact with consequences for a hauler.

A shortline hands off to a larger railroad somewhere, and the road leg exists precisely because the rail leg stops. Where a yard is a Class I main-line facility the trucking around it tends to be local drayage; where it is a shortline the truck often runs the longer leg instead. Which of those applies here was not established and is not assumed — but it is the question to ask, rather than the tonnage nobody published.

The Goodfellow Air Force Base row adds the other half of the local picture: base work is service and support fleets rather than production hauling, and those trucks turn over on a schedule rather than when a contract ends.

Two anchors 4.03 miles apart inside one county is a concentration, and it is the geometry we can actually check.

Whatever the leg, all of it runs under one set of figures, and Texas arranges them unusually.

Without a permit the state allows 80,000 lb gross, 20,000 lb on a single axle and 34,000 lb on a tandem. With a Texas permit the single axle rises to 25,000 lb and the tandem to 46,000 — where every other permit regime on file raises the gross instead. Whether a Texas permit also raises the gross was not established, and this page does not assume it does.

Relief otherwise comes only through permits written for named industries: ready-mixed concrete, fluid milk, timber, and super heavy single-trip. Ready-mixed concrete trucks get 23,000 lb and 46,000 lb with no permit at all, as a standing allowance rather than something applied for.

There is no permit named for aggregate, stone, sand or quarry products, so a pit hauler falls back to the general route: ten per cent on the axle, five per cent on gross, a fifteen thousand dollar bond, and liability for actual damage to load-restricted roads.

Tex. Transp. Code § 621.101; Chapter 623 permits and the state size and weight limits. Information, not legal advice.

Beyond the weight rules, the paperwork comes down to one sentence.

Everything after that sentence is a fix rather than a category. A lost title has a counter replacement. Where none exists there is a bonded route. Both are ordinary and neither stops a sale.

The Texas salvage line is the most seller-favourable on file. A truck is branded salvage only where the cost of repairs exceeds its actual cash value immediately before the damage — effectively the whole value, with no percentage in the test, against eighty per cent in Florida and sixty in Oklahoma. It is a two-part test as well: there must be damage to, or a missing, major component part, and thirteen of those are enumerated.

Repainting and sales tax come out of the repair figure before the comparison. No other state on file excludes paintwork, and on a heavy truck that is a large line.

Emissions inspection is not a step for a diesel truck in Texas. The state exempts diesel vehicles outright, so the county programme list never reaches it.

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

All of it is iron we buy. Day cabs and road tractors working to and from the Texas Pacifico Transportation yard, dump trucks and aggregate haulers, flatbeds and lowboys.

Then the rest of it: rollbacks, box trucks, straight trucks, service bodies, and the work trucks and pickups that go with a crew or a base contract.

A shortline yard and a Goodfellow Air Force Base contract fleet 4.03 miles apart turn over a wider spread of equipment than either would alone.

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 came off a base support contract.Common around Goodfellow Air Force Base and across Tom Green County. Those units are usually well documented, which makes the whole thing faster.
• It ran the long leg off the railhead rather than local drayage.Then the miles are real highway miles. Tell us the route and we read the odometer against it rather than against a yard 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.
• Do you have to come out to look at it?Not necessarily. We can come to you and drive it away, come and tow it, buy it remotely and arrange the tow, or you can drive it to us. Whichever suits the truck and your week.

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

Yards near the Texas Pacifico Transportation line and across Tom Green County usually have one waiting.

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.