Marble country
Two yard rows, and they are almost the same place
The record here is small and worth reading carefully rather than padding out. Two rail-yard rows sit about 0.69 and 0.92 miles south of the middle of town — a quarter of a mile apart, which is close enough that the pair is very likely one facility recorded twice rather than two.
The stone is the trade. The Clarendon Quarry is about 4.1 miles south-west with 8 people and the Hogback Quarry about 8.6 miles north-west with 10. That is the whole of what is recorded inside ten miles: two crushed-stone operations, eighteen people between them, in a valley that has been quarried for a very long time.
And that stone has to leave on a town road
Those two quarries are the reason the road classification matters more here than the weight limit does. The Clarendon Quarry sits 4 miles out and the Hogback Quarry 9, and the roads between them and anywhere else are town roads — which in this state is not a detail but the whole of the problem.
A short haul on a town road is a different job from a short haul on a state highway, and the difference is not a few thousand pounds. It is the difference between a full load and a fraction of one.
Vermont weight law
Twenty-four thousand pounds, on the road outside
Here is the number that decides it. Under 23 V.S.A. § 1392 the limit on a class 2, 3 or 4 town highway, or on a bridge with other than a wood floor in any town or incorporated village, is 24,000 lb. On a bridge with a wood floor, wood subfloor or wood stringers it is 16,000 lb on a class 3 or 4 town highway and 20,000 lb on a class 1 or 2, unless the town selectboard posts otherwise.
Twenty-four thousand pounds is the lowest general limit on any state file we hold, and a loaded tractor-trailer is more than three times it. The general maximum is 80,000 lb, with the gross-weight table topping out there at 51 feet for five or more axles — but that is the ceiling, not the road. In this state the question is rarely how much a truck can carry. It is which roads it can use at all, and around a quarry that is decided town by town.
23 V.S.A. § 1392, with permitting under § 1400. Information, not legal advice, and only as current as the date the rule file was last verified.
Vermont paperwork
We need a title — unless it never had one
Those road limits are the hard part; the paperwork is the easy one, and it is one sentence. Everything after it is a fix rather than a category: a counter replacement if the title is lost, a bonded route if the truck is old enough that it never had one. Neither stops a sale, and neither changes with the road — the file is the same for a truck at the Clarendon Quarry 4 miles south-west and one at the Hogback Quarry 9 miles north-west.
What this state does not have is a salvage percentage, so nobody should quote you one for it. The scheme runs on an application clock instead, which is a different mechanism entirely from the 75 per cent threshold rules New Hampshire and New York use. If your truck carries a brand, tell us and we will check it against your paperwork rather than against another state’s number.
Vermont title and salvage provisions — an application clock and no percentage. Information, not legal advice.
What we buy here
Stone and timber run different iron, and whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change — we buy all of them. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers off the Clarendon and Hogback quarries. Log trucks and timber rigs off the country around them. Day cabs and road tractors on the yard work, flatbeds, box trucks, service bodies and the pickups that follow the rest of it around.
Most of it works inside about 9 miles — the yard rows south of town, the Clarendon Quarry at 4 and the Hogback Quarry at 9.
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 Rutland
- Does it have to run?No. It does have to be complete, though — if the engine, transmission, doors, rear ends, drive shafts, wheels or anything under the hood have been removed, we can’t buy it. A missing bumper is fine. A missing driveline is not.
- The road to me is a class 4 town highway. Does that stop you?No. It changes how the truck leaves rather than whether we buy it — and on a wood-floored bridge on a class 3 or 4 town highway the limit is 16,000 lb, so working around it is an ordinary part of the job here rather than a surprise.
- What if I can’t find the title?We need a title — unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. If it’s lost, there’s a counter replacement. If there was never one to lose, there’s a bonded route. Neither stops a sale.
- There’s still money owed on it. Now what?That’s a payoff and a lien release, and it’s the slow part rather than the hard part. Tell us up front and we’ll work it into the paperwork.
- How do you pay?Cash or electronic payment, whichever you would rather have.
- Do you actually come out to the quarries?Yes. 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. The Clarendon Quarry is about 4 miles south-west and the Hogback Quarry about 9 north-west.
Why people call
Beyond the trucks themselves, the reasons repeat. A DOT physical didn’t go the way it used to. A quarry contract that filled the season for nine years went to somebody else. The truck is just sitting beside a shed, and every month it sits is another month of insurance on something that isn’t turning a wheel.
The lots by the yard rows south of town, and out toward the Clarendon Quarry 4 miles south-west and the Hogback Quarry 9 miles north-west, hold a fair number of trucks in exactly that position.
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.