Charles E. Perkins is generally regarded as the most influential leader of the CB&Q as well as a vital force in the railroad industry as a whole. He presided over the CB&Q during its time of greatest expansion. Starting at the age of 18, he spent over 40 years in the railroad industry. According to Richard C. Overton’s Burlington Route, Perkins was recommended by his cousin J. M. Forbes as assistant to Charles Russell Lowell in the newly established Land Department of the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad in Iowa in 1859. In the following years he rose from assistant director and treasurer, to superintendent, to director of the Land Department. Perkins’ years in the Land Department were essential to the rapid growth of the CB&Q during the 1870s and 1880s where he became an integral force behind the B&M’s expansion.

Perkins was the vice-president the B&MRR in Nebraska as well as general manager at CB&Q during the 1870s, and in 1881, after the consolidation of those lines, was made president of the CB&Q. During the 1880s he concurrently held top level positions at the B&MN, the CB&Q, Hannibal & St. Joseph, and the Kansas City, St. Joseph & Council Bluffs railroads. He oversaw the construction of lines and the acquisition of dozens of smaller systems. He was directly involved in politics and negotiations, labor issues, and the development of terminal facilities and bridges. His tenure encompassed radical changes in regulatory laws and the strike of 1888. After his retirement in 1901, he still oversaw the sale of the CB&Q to the Northern Lines, and remained on the board of directors for several years thereafter.