Just look to real world examples....

....There's probably PLENTY of them out there. But does it really matter? This is all YOUR world, do what you want, NOTHING you choose is wrong. In a model situation, it doesn't matter if a person is  "Road" crew or a "Yard" crew, now does it? Nobody is getting paid, it only reflects on the call board your crew signs up on. Want to know how a terminal railroad interchanges/d cars? Buy Charles F. Geletzke's book, "Detroit and Toledo Shortline -Expressway For Industry", it'll make your head spin. But I'm sure Dave H. will provide specific examples, because he probably dealt with this in the "real world".

How does transfer fit into your operations plan?

Hi,

this may be backwards, but how does transfer fit into your operation plan?

You'll likely have an idea how you want to operate your railroad (e.g. crew 1 runs a train into the yard coming from the mainline, then picks up another crew and runs it out to the mainline... Crew 2 would switch the yard... Or make it "sessions" instead of "crews"). Check your operations to see where there are crews waiting for something to happen (in my example the yard crew 2 would be waiting for crew 1 to arrive at the start of the session). Why not use the downtime to send a transfer run out to the "PaLE" yard?

Obviously there might be changes depending on your operation schedule.

Still, one of the limitations will be crew time. There may be crews waiting for their turn which would make a perfect moment to send them on a transfer run...

All things considered, I'd think that might not be the "prototype-perfect" solution, but it might help you answer the question about "how to do it within the constraints of crew availability"

Now that you've read my post, you'd better ignore it

Have fun and stay healthy

Yard to yard

Yard to yard interchange within the terminal would most likely be handled by yard crews.  Yard limits makes no difference, switching limits (a different thing) does (technically if the track connecting the railroads isn't a main track then its not yard limits anyway).

But as brought up previously, that's not really the question.  The question is what will you be having the real crew standing in your basement/building/layout room do?  Are you going to have one crew that does nothing but shuttle cuts to other roads?  Will they do yard switching, then deliver the cut they just switched up?  Will they just make the delivery move then go back in the operator  crew "pool" for another assignment?

That's more important that what type of crew is on the trains.  Figure out what they will do and you can attach a label to the job later.

The current "plan"...

...is to have three yard crews.  One handles classifying the cars, one for blocking and trimming cars, and one to handle everything else (i.e. deliver/pick up cars to/from local industries, deliver/pick up cars to/from the engine service facilities, and to handle "transfer runs" to the P&LE, B&O, and PRR yards.  What I was not sure is if I could do that and still be within usual prototype practices in 1953.  If "Road Crews" were the ones who handled the Transfer Runs, I could not have the third road crew do it.  

Thanks all.

Ken L.

You're looking at it from the wrong angle

Don't think of it as REAL CREWS doing REAL JOBS. Designate the trains you WANT to run, it doesn't matter what operating crew member runs the train, as long as he runs it to where it needs to go, and hauls what you want it to haul. You're over thinking it....Trust me, I know.