One of the things I learned early in my narrow gauge railfanning career was never to say anything nice about Al to Bob Richardson. As far as Bob was concerned, Perman was the devil incarnate...or at least close. And thankfully Bob is still around to make me follow that rule occasionally.
But later in my railroad career I met some folks who had worked for Perlman at the NYC, and it became clear that Perlman was more a hero than a devil. A flawed hero perhaps, but the kind of visionary and manager that if there had been more like him perhaps the PennCentral bankrupcy and that whole era of railroad history would never had happened.
Perlman knew the railroads had to change, to become more competitive, and he was pretty good at making it happen. Unfortunately, that focus on the future made the past an enemy. That was too bad, and unnecessary as others like Graham Claytor showed. But Al was one of early pioneers in helping railroads make the transition from being monopolists to competitive businesses.
Now if only the STB hadn't screwed up by making them monopolists again.