We buy trucks in Wisconsin Rapids

One rail-yard row is attached to this city. It runs under BNSF Railway and its coordinate lies 0.93 miles from the centroid, inside the place — the coordinate landed within the mapped boundary rather than being assigned to whichever town happened to be nearest.

That is a plain and correct filing, and it is the kind this lane has spent a lot of pages not being able to report. Appleton Yard is filed at Menasha and sits in Appleton; Wausau Yard is filed at Schofield and sits in Wausau. This row is where it says it is.

Which leaves one carrier, one distance and a correct filing, and nothing else. The commodities handled at the BNSF Railway yard 0.93 miles out could not be determined from any source we read, so we are not going to characterise them.

The coordinate carries the usual caveat too: it is the mean of a track polyline’s vertices rather than a surveyed facility point, which is how every rail-yard row in that file is derived. It puts you in the right part of the city, not at the right gate — the same caveat that sits on Wausau Yard, on Appleton Yard and on every other row in that file. Everything else on this page is state rules, which are written down and apply the same to everybody — and after seventy-one other pages in this state, that is the honest note to end a lane on.

The seasonal half of those rules is decided closest to home and written down least. Wis. Stat. § 349.16(1) lets the officer in charge of town, city or village highway maintenance, the county highway commissioner or committee, or the department for state highways impose a special or seasonal weight limitation where a highway would likely be seriously damaged because of weakness of the roadbed due to deterioration or climatic conditions, and § 349.16(2) requires signs giving reasonable notice.

Then § 349.16(3)(a) lets that same authority exempt vehicles carrying certain commodities it specifies, or set different limits for them, where the exemption is reasonable and necessary to promote the public health, safety and welfare. The statute names no commodity at all. Each authority sets its own list, so whether a spring posting lets a loaded truck through is decided locally, and there is no statewide answer to give. Several other states put the equivalent answer in a statute you can read. This one puts it in the records of each town.

Wis. Stat. §§ 349.16(1), (2) and (3)(a). Information, not legal advice.

None of that reaches the paperwork, which is the short part. That is the rule, and everything after it is a fix rather than a category. A lost title has a counter replacement. Where none exists there is a bonded route. Neither one stops a sale.

One provision can move without anybody deciding to move it. Under Wis. Stat. § 342.065, where an insurance claim payment including any deductible exceeds 70 percent of a vehicle’s fair market value, the insurer must notify the department in writing within thirty days. The trigger is the payment rather than somebody’s repair estimate, and a purchaser of a salvage vehicle not already titled as one must apply promptly after delivery for a salvage certificate of title. So the paperwork can be ahead of the truck, which is the reason to check it before a sale rather than after.

Wis. Stat. § 342.065. Information, not legal advice, and only as current as the day it was read.

None of that changes what we are interested in. Day cabs and road tractors off the BNSF Railway yard 0.93 miles out and the freight along the river, the same line that runs up past Wausau Yard. Log trucks and timber rigs off the forest work north of here. Flatbeds, dump trucks and box trucks out of the trades. Work trucks and pickups off crews. Whatever you drive, the offer does not change. We buy all of them.

We come to you and drive it away, we come to you and tow it, or we buy it remotely and arrange the tow with nobody visiting at all. All of those are ordinary in a place this size, and bringing it to us is an option too if that suits your week.

• 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.
• How am I paid?Cash or electronic payment. That is the whole list.
• Do you come out past the city?Yes, well past it — out beyond the yard 0.93 miles from the middle of town and a long way further, up towards Wausau Yard and further north than that. Distance has never stopped a sale.
• An insurer paid a claim on it years ago.Then check what the title says now, because the notification duty here runs off the payment rather than off a repair estimate. Send it over and we will read it with you.
• Do I have to bring it to you?No. We come to you and drive it away, we come to you and tow it, or we buy it remotely and arrange the tow with nobody visiting at all.
• What about the title?We need one unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. A lost title has a counter replacement; where none exists there is a bonded route.

None of those is really the reason for the call. Retiring. A medical that went the wrong way. A contract that ended and never got replaced. A day cab standing on a lot within sight of the BNSF Railway yard 0.93 miles from the middle of town, up the line from Wausau Yard, insured every month and not turning a wheel since the work stopped.

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.