That's really great Greg. Thanks for sharing your memories. On the Long Island I'm sure he would have seen plenty of leased Pennsy K4 4-6-2s as well as L1 2-8-2s which were brought in to handle wartime traffic, with some incredible volumes of both freight and passenger traffic moving through some very congested urban interlockings. On the New Haven, Bridgeport would have been almost all electric, with some incredible traffic also on the 4-track New Haven main line; the New Haven's heavy steam mostly stayed off the main line and was found instead handling bridge traffic to and from Maybrook on the Poughkeepsie Bridge line to the north. It must have been an incredible experience to see all of that!
-Philip Marshall