Fifty-two years ago, the Seymour truck weigh station began operations a mile and a half north of U.S. 50 on Interstate 65.

At the time, the facility was labeled the finest such installation in Indiana featuring computerized inspection equipment and was the state’s first dual weigh station, meaning there were stations on both sides of the divided highway.

But after 45 years of use, the stations no longer functioned as they should. The pavement around the buildings was cracking and breaking up, standing water had become an issue and the once state-of-the-art equipment was outdated and couldn’t pass certification.

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In 2010, the state decided to close the northbound Seymour station, and a year later, the southbound station across the four-lane highway also was closed. Both were eventually torn down.

Indiana State Police Motor Carrier inspectors in the area have since done all of their work from the road, using portable scales they keep in their police vehicles.

But veteran Motor Carrier Inspector Mary Eglen of Seymour won’t have to worry about the difficulties, dangers and hassles of stopping and inspecting tractor-trailers in the field much longer.

The newly constructed Seymour Weigh Station facility will be open and fully operational again before the end of the year, with many new features to make the process of weighing and inspecting trucks, quicker, safer and more efficient.

Construction began in late winter of 2016.

“I think it’s something they’ve needed for a long time,” Eglen said of the new facility. “Working a scale house like this compared to working the road is about like shooting fish in a barrel. These trucks come through and there’s so many of them that are overweight.”

Besides Eglen, the Seymour Weigh Station will be staffed by District Coordinator Kimberly Hill and Motor Carrier Inspector Mike Buckley, both of whom split their time between Seymour and the West Harrison scales.

“It’s a major upgrade to what it was before,” Hill said. “To a certain extent, we’re more effective in a fixed location like this. We need to be out on the road, but volume wise, you can check more trucks.”

In just one week, the facility was registering 89,500 trucks driving by, she said.

“The truck volume on this highway is just incredible,” she said. “So I can check a whole lot more of those trucks using the technology we have here than I can with just me going out and driving around in my car, eyeballing and guessing.”

Eglen said although the facility is not up and running officially yet, they have been bringing some trucks into the weigh station for the past three weeks off and on.

“They still have some things they have to work out before (INDOT) releases it to us,” Eglen said of the facility.

Eglen said some people have told her they thought the new inspection garage was actually a wash bay for semis.

“Yep, we’re going to write you a ticket and then wash your truck,” Eglen said with a laugh.

On Thursday afternoon, representatives from the Indiana State Police, Indiana Department of Transportation, along with those involved with design and construction, gave tours and provided information to the public about the new Seymour Weigh Station during an open house.

The station is the final part of a nearly $7 million project that combines remote weigh-in-motion scales with the certified weigh-in scales, 3,370-square-foot dispatch area and offices, restrooms and lounge and 3,450-square-foot drive-through, temperature-controlled inspection barn.

Contractors for the job included Rieth-Riley Construction, Weddle Brothers Contractors, CDM Smith and Fosse & Associates Architects.

James Powell with CDM Smith of Illinois served as the overall project manager.

“The first thing we did when we started this project three years ago in July of 2014, we met with state police and INDOT to kind of discuss what the pieces of the puzzle should be,” he said. “Truck traffic nationwide just keeps going up, and trucks that are overweight do a lot of damage.

“So you’re really accomplishing two things here,” he said. “You’re keeping (drivers) honest, but you’re also making it safer.”

Capt. Jon Smithers, commander of the ISP Commercial Motor Vehicle Enforcement Division, proudly walked through the new facility Thursday pointing out the different features of the new weigh station that make it unique and stand out among other weigh stations in the state.

“At all the others, the screening of the vehicles themselves and the carriers takes place in segments,” he said.

Trucks are weighed on the highway before they enter the weigh station. Once they come through the scales, their credentials are checked and they are weighed again, which determines if they must have a legal enforceable weight done or can continue on their way.

In the new station, all of the screenings are done while the truck is still on the interstate, Smithers said.

“If something doesn’t check out, each individual truck gets a signal to enter the weigh station,” he said. “If everything checks out, they can keep going. It’s a much more refined and efficient process, because you’re only coming in here if there is a problem.

“It allows the reputable carriers to not have to stop all the time,” he added. “It’s saving the companies on fuel, because they aren’t sitting, idling and they are saving time on their driving hours so they aren’t using up the hours they have available to operate sitting and waiting to go through the scale and it allows them to keep moving so they get the product delivered on time.”

Due to the heavy traffic on Interstate 65, Smithers said the Seymour Weigh Station will be put to good use.

“I expect this to be one of our busier scale facilities,” he said.

Should Eglen or any other motor carrier inspector need to take a closer look at a truck, they can have the driver pull into the inspection barn where they can use the new performance based brake tester to locate problems they weren’t able to find before.

A lighted pit allows the motor carrier to safely and comfortably walk underneath the truck to make sure there are no problems with the undercarriage.

“It’s a much better environment for our inspectors,” Smithers said.

It’s a whole lot better than having to get down on your hands and knees to crawl under a truck when it’s freezing cold and snowing or pouring down rain, Eglen said, something she’s had to do plenty of times in her career.

Having an updated, functioning weigh station is important in keeping overweight trucks from tearing up state roads and in keeping the roads safer, Smithers said.

“A weigh station is more than weight,” he said. “Here they’ll get screened to make sure the drivers and trucks are properly credentialed and have proper operating authority and they’ve paid their fuel tax. Trucks do a lot more damage to the roads than cars do which is why they pay more in fuel tax.

“They’ll also get checked to make sure their license plate is current and they’re log books are being kept up to date,” he added. “So it’s not only weight but all the things that are important in making sure the rules are being followed and they’re operating safely.”

Once the interstate is widened to three lanes, a project expected to begin as early as the spring, Smithers said the new weigh station will go a long way in keeping the road lasting longer.

Right now there are no plans to rebuild the weigh station on the southbound side, Smithers added.

“There are very few outgoing scale houses,” he said. “We look at it as a port of entry, where we’re checking trucks coming from out of state into Indiana.”

That doesn’t mean the state isn’t concerned with trucks traveling in the opposite direction or trying to get around being screened, he added.

Instead of spending millions more dollars to build another weigh station, the state decided to make it possible to use portable scales on the southbound side and installed weigh-in motion sensing systems at the Seymour/Jonesville exit and on U.S. 31 just north of the U.S. 50 junction.

The virtual weigh-in-motion-sensing systems include cameras that take pictures of the trucks’ license plate and transmits that information to the weigh station or the motor carrier inspector’s computer in their vehicle.

“It saves a lot of money,” Smithers said.