TELL TALE EXTRA: AE[N]P
When he can be corralled in his office high above one of New York's more
colorful canyons, the graying, blue-eyed boss of the second largest rail
''spread'' in ye country is discovered to be the same quiet, confident man he
was when he arrived from the West six years and many problems ago. Usually,
though, Alfred E. Perlman, president of the New York Central, is out on the
property in his business car, riding herd on the myriad operations that make a
great transportation system tick.
In the spring of 1954, Al Perlman was invited by railroad mavericks Robert R.
Young, a man he had never me, to come to the New York Central to modernize and
streamline its properties, reorganize its personnel and operations.
Perlman was then executive vice-president of the Denver and Rio Grande Western,
where he had enhanced his reputation as a bright young man of railroading
through operating reforms that included the introduction of off-track
maintenance machines on a mountain railroad where ''it couldn't be done.'' He
pushed dieselization, backed the building of a research laboratory for
''test-tube'' railroading that produced millions of dollars in operating
savings on the Rio Grande. (The Central now has a laboratory at Cleveland - - a
testimonial to Perlman’s firm belief in railroad research.)
Big Railroad, Big Problems.
On the 10,300-mile Central, Perlman found familiar problems, and some new ones
- - all of them tougher because of the sheer size of the system. Central's
large and once-profitable passenger business, including commuter services, was
producing deficits that were a sever drain on freight revenues. The Central
plainly had too much plant - - freight yards and other facilities were
obsolete. The road suffered from excessive taxation, and there were heavy debt
maturities looming.
Into these and other roadblocks the new chief executive officer charged with
all the drive for which he is noted. The dramatic progress Central has made
along the comeback trail can be credited to the brilliance of the man from
Colorado and his smoothly functioning ''young'' executive team (average age,
46).
Because he olds that ''a machine is only as good as the man behind it,'' Mr.
Perlman initiated a program of management development along with his
modernization projects. ''We're building a good backlog of management
material,'' he says with obvious pride. ''I consider this the No. 1
responsibility of any chief executive.''
Since he was eight years old (he was born in 1902), Al Perlman has never wanted
to be anything but a railroader. In his youth, he worked summers on several
roads, earned a bachelors of science degree in civil engineering at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, then joined the Northern Pacific as a
draftsman.
After a year behind a drawing board, 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 became inspector of Icing Facilities at St. Paul, a year later was
named assistant superintendent, Bridges and Buildings, at Glendive, Montana. He
was promoted to roadmaster, served at several points until 1930, when the NP
sent him to Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration.
On his return, he became roadmaster at Staples, Minnesota, and in 1934 was
named an assistant on the staff of the vice-president (Operations). Later that
year, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation borrowed him as a consultant, to
make studies of several ailing railroads, including the Rio Grande. He was then
hired by the Burlington, where his first assignment was directing the
rebuilding of flood-damaged lines in Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas. In 1936,
he joined the Rio Grande as engineer, Maintenance-of-Way, in 1941 was made
chief engineer. In 1948 he became general manager, in 1952, executive
vice-president.
Diversification, Mergers Are ''Musts.''
Al Perlman still works long hours, still carries boots and denims in his office
car. He is not over-awed by the problems of the Central or of the railroad
industry ''if we can be permitted as volume carriers to price our services
competitively, based on costs.'' He also believes railroads must be permitted
to diversify - - ''to give the shipping public maximum use of the nation’s
transportation plant.''
Railroad mergers are a must, in his opinion, to permit further automation and
efficiencies, ''but shippers and investors must be permitted to share in the
increased productivity that results.''
And Al Perlman still loves railroading - - ''It's the greatest job in the
world.''
SOURCE
No Author. ''The Man from Colorado.'' _Modern Railroads_, November, 1960, p. 9.
* * * * *
''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.
''Our electronic classification yards are one of the best examples of advanced
cybernation at work in the railroad industry. For example, when a freight train
leaves Toledo, Ohio, its consist is electronically stored in a memory system at
Elkhart, Indiana, 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.
''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.''
SOURCE
Perlman, Alfred Edward. ''New Frontiers in Railroading,'' excerpts of remarks.
The Economic Club of Chicago, May 15, 1962. Web page,
www.econclubchi.org/History/Excerpts_AlfredEPerlman.pdf, accessed August 13,
2011.
* * * * *
''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.''
SOURCE
Perlman, Alfred Edward. New York _Times_, July 3, 1958
* * * * *
FURTHER READING
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." _Trains_,
March, 2002, pp. 38-45.
No Author. "Alfred E. Perlman, 1902-1983." _Trains_, July, 1983, p. 5.
Saunders, Richard. "Alfred E. Perlman." In _Encyclopedia on American Business,
History and Biography, Railroads in the Age of Regulation_. New York: Facts on
File, 1990, pp. 341-348.
* * * * *
What was AEP's business car name or number while he was on the Central?
Does anyone have any further information on the heavy construction job AEP did
all over the Q lines out to Denver ca. 1935-6?
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