439:. Crossovers were located an average of every seven miles. If a locomotive engineer missed a signal, the train would automatically stop, and could not be moved until the engineer complied with the signal indication. Even in blizzard conditions, the train dispatchers could start snow melters located miles away with the push of a button. Freight trains could be operated at 60 miles an hour and passenger trains could be operated at 79 miles an hour over the 163-mile stretch of double track. The two remaining segments of the former four-track Cleveland-Buffalo main line were reduced to two tracks starting in late 1957, saving the Central money in terms of both maintenance and taxes. With the opening of the Erie center in 1957, Perlman indicated that the Central's entire New York-Chicago main line would be operated under centralized traffic control by 1963, and the company was already installing centralized traffic control between Buffalo and
375:, 100 miles away. When the train leaves Elkhart, it is pushed over a hump. When a freight car rolls down the hump, an analog computer goes to work to control the car's speed. The computer takes into account the car's weight, the kind of bearings, the condition of the lubricant in the journals, the direction and velocity of the wind, on which track the car must come to rest, how many curves it must go around to get there, and how far down that track it will be going before encountering another car. In the time it takes the car to move 150 feet down the incline, the computer has calculated the precise speed the car must leave the hump track in order to roll to its classification track and couple safely with the next car.
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331:, to modernize and streamline its properties as well as reorganize its personnel and operations. Young was the recent winner of a proxy fight to control the Central. Together, they worked on improving the Central's finances and reducing expenses. Young was considered a railroad visionary, but found the failing New York Central in worse shape than he had imagined. Unable to keep his promises, Young was forced to suspend dividend payments in January, 1958. Later that month, Young, who had a history of
308:, then struggling in receivership. Perlman joined the Rio Grande in 1936 as engineer-in-charge of maintenance-of-way work; in 1941, he was promoted to become chief engineer. In 1948, Perlman was general manager; from 1952 to 1954, executive vice-president. At the Rio Grande, Perlman enhanced his reputation as an operations expert with reforms that included off-track maintenance machines (today's highway/rail equipment), transitioning the road from labor-intensive steam locomotives to fuel-efficient
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360:"Like many other industries, we are using data processing machines to replace routine, repetitive clerical work. In addition, we have automatic machine tools, which perform their work faster and more efficiently without human intervention. We have maintenance-of-way equipment, which performs many laborious, complicated and delicate operations automatically. We are, in short, like most of industry, automating simple control functions that require only low-level human judgment.
378:"Metal shoes, operated by electronic instructions from the computer, press against the car's wheels to retard it to the correct speed. A radar-scanning device between the rails determines when the car has been brought down to the calculated speed and then releases the retarders. All the while, the electronic memory system is opening and closing switches to route the car automatically to the proper track."
514:(both from the Pennsylvania), Perlman was dismissed from the Penn Central on June 8, 1970. Saunders, an attorney, returned to private practice having held onto his stock and suffered a personal loss of $ 700,000 (in 1970 dollars). Bevan was tried and acquitted for embezzling $ 4 million in Penn Central funds. Perlman, however, remained in railroading, and was hired to revitalize the
478:. Stuart T. Saunders, leader of the Pennsylvania for five years, was named chairman. Penn Central operated a system with 40,000 miles (64,000 km) of track in fourteen states and two Canadian provinces. It had total assets of $ 6.3 billion and annual revenues of nearly $ 2 billion. Within two years of merger, competition from trucking on the federally funded
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For the next ten years, Perlman continued to work to strengthen and improve the
Central in the face of ever-increasing air, automobile, sea and truck competition. Within six years, Perlman succeeded in reducing the Central's long-term debt by nearly $ 100 million; reduced its passenger-service
486:, deindustrialization in the Northeast and Rust Belt, an economic downturn, strict regulation, heavy taxation, redundant trackage, outdated work rules, the inability to end money-losing passenger services and the forced 1969 integration of the financially disabled
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as a draftsman. After a year "He decided that the way to get to the top was to start at the bottom, and he worked eight months as a track laborer." In 1925, he was promoted to inspector of icing facilities on the
Northern Pacific, with headquarters in
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on July 3, 1958. "After you've done a thing the same way for two years, look it over carefully. After five years, look at it with suspicion. And after ten years, throw it away and start all over." In 1960, with railroad deregulation under the
518:. He served as president from December 1, 1970, to December 31, 1972, and chairman from 1970 until his retirement on June 24, 1976. Later that year, the Western Pacific was sold to a private investment group led by Perlman protégé
431:, control center activating the world's longest stretch of electronically controlled railroad, at a cost of $ 6,238,460. Centralized traffic control enabled one operator each shift to control the trains between Erie and
454:, his executive team was an average of 46 years old. Perlman said he considered developing good managers "The No. 1 responsibility of any chief executive officer . . . a machine is only as good as the man behind it."
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more than two decades away, Perlman was quoted as saying the railroad industry could solve its own problems "If we can be permitted as volume carriers to price our services competitively, based on costs."
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deficit from $ 42 to $ 24.8 million; and by 1959 had increased earnings to $ 1.29 per share: double that of 1958. Perlman's attempts to create economically viable passenger traffic led to the famous
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in
American history at the time. After Perlman's death, his son stated, "My father was Vice-Chairman of the Penn Central and has been quoted as saying that was not a merger, but a takeover."
457:
Even as chief executive officer, Perlman was known to carry boots and denims in his business car. Among the business maxims
Perlman is best remembered for is a comment which appeared in the
396:, the yard was rebuilt and automated, increasing capacity to handle 8,329 cars a day, up from 2,300. When completed in 1968, the Central spent $ 29 million, including $ 4 million for a
246:, Perlman never wanted to be anything but a railroader from the age of eight. While earning his degree at MIT, he worked summers on several railroads. Upon graduation, he joined the
267:. In 1934, he was named as an assistant on the staff of the Northern Pacific's Vice-President (Operations) Howard E. Stevens (Stevens himself was a trained civil engineer).
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357:
Commenting in 1962 on the integration of computerized networks on the
Central, especially in the replacement of clerical duties and yard operations, Perlman said:
211:, and later, president of the Western Pacific railroad presiding over its successful turnaround before being absorbed into the present day Union Pacific system.
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excerpts of remarks. The
Economic Club of Chicago, May 15, 1962. Web page, www.econclubchi.org/History/Excerpts_AlfredEPerlman.pdf, accessed August 13, 2011.
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In 1949, Perlman served as a consultant to the
Railroad Administration Bureau of the South Korean Ministry of Transportation (the predecessor to
700:
Bruce, H.J. "Perlman the
Magnificent: Alfred E. Perlman, Czar of the New York Central, Savior of the Western Pacific, A Star Wherever He Went."
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255:. A year later, he was named assistant superintendent, Bridges and Buildings, with headquarters on the railway's Yellowstone Division at
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494:, coupled with Penn Central's own bungled integration of the merged companies and mismanagement, resulted in the largest corporate
443:. The final four-track portion of the entire NYC main line, the Hudson Division south of Albany, was double-tracked by late 1962.
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are one of the best examples of advanced cybernation at work in the railroad industry. For example, when a freight train leaves
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408:
279:
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Perlman, Alfred E., "Pittsburgh and the P & LE" (Newcomen
Society,1963)(introductory remarks recap Perlman's career).
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335:, committed suicide in his Palm Beach, Florida mansion. Perlman assumed Young's leadership role with the Central.
259:. He was next promoted to roadmaster, serving at several points on the NP system. In 1930, the NP sent Perlman to
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Perlman's modernization of the
Central's physical plant also included paring down four-track main line routes to
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jet engine. Running in Ohio, it set a still-standing speed record of 183.85 miles per hour (295.88 km/h).
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Lee Alfred Perlman, Vice-President and Director, Ashland Historical Railroad Museum, Ashland, Oregon.
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558:. Perlman was a member of the Transportation Association of America; American Museum of Immigration;
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Goldman, Ari L. "Stuart T. Saunders, Driving Force behind Penn Central, Dies at 77." The New York
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As he had done on the Rio Grande, Perlman opened a railroad research laboratory on the Central at
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with centralized traffic control. On January 16, 1957, he was the first to push the button at the
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and the establishment of a research laboratory for what was then called "test-tube" railroading.
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Beginning February 1, 1968, Perlman was president, director, and chief administrative office of
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with a master's degree in railway transportation in 1931. He was awarded honorary degrees from
203:(November 22, 1902—April 30, 1983) was a railroad executive, having served as president of the
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Encyclopedia on American Business, History and Biography, Railroads in the Age of Regulation.
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Graduate School of Business Administration. Upon his return, he was appointed roadmaster at
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Anderson, Thom. Electronic mail, Western Pacific Railroad Historical Society, May 30, 2008.
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service facility. When opened, the rebuilt terminal was named the Alfred E. Perlman Yard.
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Working on the Burlington in Colorado brought Perlman into close proximity with the
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This article is about the railroad executive. For the Philadelphia politician, see
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435:. while another operator each shift controlled train movement between Erie and
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450:. Perlman also brought in a young crop of like-minded managers; according to
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No Author. "Central Dedicates 163 Miles of New Push-Button Track." Buffalo
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Magazine's ten most-prominent railroad presidents of the Twentieth Century.
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noted that Perlman was invited in the spring of 1954 to come to the
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as a consultant about financially-ailing railroads, including the
389:, built in 1924. Billed as a twenty million dollar undertaking
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as an assistant engineer in 1935, helping reconstruct lines in
22:
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in Washington, D.C., Alfred E. Perlman (right), President of
371:, its consist is electronically stored in a memory system at
612:"Alfred E. Perlman Dies at 80; New York Central President".
474:(PC), the ill-fated merger of the New York Central with the
554:). The following year, he served as a consultant to the
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718:New York: Facts on File, 1990, pp. 341–348.
207:Transportation Company and its predecessor, the
415:, confers with Stuart T. Saunders, Chairman of
652:New York: Simmons-Boardman, 1977, p. 309.
8:
636:"Conrail's Selkirk Yard, A Visitor's Guide."
714:Saunders, Richard. "Alfred E. Perlman." In
707:No Author. "Alfred E. Perlman, 1902–1983."
650:Who's Who in Railroading and Rail Transit.
522:. The Western Pacific was merged into the
84:
758:20th-century American railroad executives
242:According to a November 1960 write-up in
73:Learn how and when to remove this message
402:
381:One of the largest yard projects was at
36:This article includes a list of general
595:
287:Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad
419:, about employee protection agreement.
306:Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad
165:Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad
634:Consolidated Rail Corporation (1986).
221:Massachusetts Institute of Technology
7:
662:No Author. "The Man from Colorado,"
194:Michael Louis; Lee Alfred; Constance
534:Perlman died on April 30, 1983, in
407:Conferring outside Hearing Room of
276:Reconstruction Finance Corporation
270:In 1934, during the depths of the
42:it lacks sufficient corresponding
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316:New York Central and Penn Central
274:, Perlman was "borrowed" by the
733:MIT School of Engineering alumni
488:New York, New Haven and Hartford
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659:, January 16, 1957, p. 63.
227:in 1923. He graduated from the
738:Harvard Business School alumni
704:, March, 2002, pp. 38–45.
502:Western Pacific and retirement
492:Interstate Commerce Commission
409:Interstate Commerce Commission
223:with a Bachelor of Science in
1:
671:New Frontiers in Railroading,
538:. He is remembered as one of
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280:Denver and Rio Grande Western
666:, November, 1960, p. 9.
768:Penn Central Transportation
584:List of railroad executives
472:Penn Central Transportation
301:damaged by heavy flooding.
219:Perlman graduated from the
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753:20th-century American Jews
682:Various issues, 1930–1980.
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763:New York Central Railroad
711:, July, 1983, p. 5.
536:San Francisco, California
520:Robert G. "Mike" Flannery
480:Interstate Highway System
413:New York Central Railroad
325:New York Central Railroad
285:Next, Perlman joined the
209:New York Central Railroad
169:New York Central Railroad
138:San Francisco, California
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773:Western Pacific Railroad
516:Western Pacific Railroad
248:Northern Pacific Railway
177:Western Pacific Railroad
552:Korean National Railway
229:Harvard Business School
57:more precise citations.
556:Israeli State Railways
524:Union Pacific Railroad
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476:Pennsylvania Railroad
417:Pennsylvania Railroad
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201:Alfred Edward Perlman
173:Penn Central Railroad
118:Saint Paul, Minnesota
560:University of Denver
526:on January 1, 1983.
365:classification yards
345:Budd Rail Diesel Car
669:Perlman, Alfred E.
484:St. Lawrence Seaway
333:clinical depression
253:St. Paul, Minnesota
233:Clarkson University
186:Adele Sylvia Emrich
614:The New York Times
508:Stuart T. Saunders
441:Syracuse, New York
429:Erie, Pennsylvania
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265:Staples, Minnesota
148:Railroad executive
648:Lewis, Robert G.
645:February 9, 1987.
464:Staggers Rail Act
437:Buffalo, New York
398:diesel locomotive
327:by its chairman,
257:Glendive, Montana
237:Depauw University
225:civil engineering
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89:Alfred E. Perlman
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363:"Our electronic
352:General Electric
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321:Modern Railroads
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272:Great Depression
244:Modern Railroads
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131:(1983-04-30)
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748:1983 deaths
743:1902 births
506:Along with
394: 1966
385:, south of
55:introducing
18:Al Pearlman
727:Categories
625:References
496:bankruptcy
145:Occupation
110:1902-11-22
38:references
638:Brochure.
341:Jet Train
156:1948–1976
578:See also
482:and the
295:Nebraska
291:Colorado
191:Children
261:Harvard
51:improve
709:Trains
702:Trains
643:Times.
540:Trains
299:Kansas
183:Spouse
40:, but
686:Time.
590:Notes
546:Other
530:Death
348:M-497
510:and
297:and
235:and
125:Died
104:Born
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