A year later, he was named assistant superintendent, Bridges and Buildings, with headquarters on the railway's Yellowstone Division at Glendive, Montana.

In 1934, during the depths of the Great Depression, Perlman was "borrowed" by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation as a consultant about financially-ailing railroads, including the Denver and Rio Grande Western.

Next, Perlman joined the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad as an assistant engineer in 1935, helping reconstruct lines in Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas damaged by heavy flooding.

Working on the Burlington in Colorado brought Perlman into close proximity with the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, then struggling in receivership.

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 diesel-electrics and the establishment of a research laboratory for what was then called "test-tube" railroading.

Young was considered a railroad visionary, but found the failing New York Central in worse shape than he had imagined.

Later that month, Young, who had a history of clinical depression, committed suicide in his Palm Beach, Florida mansion.

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.

For example, when a freight train leaves Toledo, Ohio, its consist is electronically stored in a memory system at Elkhart, Indiana, 100 miles away.

"Metal shoes, operated by electronic instructions from the computer, press against the car's wheels to retard it to the correct speed.

Billed as a twenty million dollar undertaking c. 1966, the yard was rebuilt and automated, increasing capacity to handle 8,329 cars a day, up from 2,300.

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.

The final four-track portion of the entire NYC main line, the Hudson Division south of Albany, was double-tracked by late 1962.

Perlman also brought in a young crop of like-minded managers; according to Modern Railroads, his executive team was an average of 46 years old.

Within two years of merger, competition from trucking on the federally funded Interstate Highway System and the St. Lawrence Seaway, 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 New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad by the Interstate Commerce Commission, coupled with Penn Central's own bungled integration of the merged companies and mismanagement, resulted in the largest corporate bankruptcy 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.

Later that year, the Western Pacific was sold to a private investment group led by Perlman protégé Robert G. "Mike" Flannery.

Perlman was a member of the Transportation Association of America; American Museum of Immigration; University of Denver; Elmira College; Bay Area Council; Newcomen Society.