Trainsplotching.

On Mon., Oct. 20, 14-year-old Eric Alvarez tried to crawl on top of a C train as it sped toward the 14th St. station. Technically speaking, Alvarez was not going to surf the train?that's reserved for elevated tracks where a kid can get up on top of the car and stand like he is riding a wave. He merely intended to crawl on top of the car and lay down.

Bad idea, considering there's seven inches between the top of a subway car and the roof of the tunnel. His head slammed into a beam and his body was dragged onto the tracks.

It's not just young New Yorkers who aspire to be daredevils. The same day Alvarez had his appointment with a subway beam, a disturbed 40-year-old, Kirk Jones from Canton, MI, a town 35 miles west of Detroit, jumped into the Niagara River and was swept over Horseshoe Falls?the highest point of Niagara Falls. Jones was luckier than Alvarez and became only the second person to survive that fall unprotected.

The dailies clucked and clucked over both stunts, but like going over the Falls in a barrel, New York City train-surfing has been going on for a long time?likely for as long as the trains have been running. When I was growing up in the Bronx, train surfing attracted a small but honored group of kids. Only the most daring or crazy would do it. A few months ago, I ran into an old friend named Deke in a store up in the Bronx. I hadn't seen him in years, but he looked as strong and fit as when he was 16.

"You know, I never thanked you properly for saving my life," he told me.

I had no idea what he was talking about. As a teenager Deke was five-eight 180 pounds?none of it fat. He was a genuine badass, and I couldn't recall any incident where he could have possibly needed my assistance. Then he reminded me of a night in the early 80s.

We'd gone out for some serious drinking in Manhattan and were riding the 4 train back to the Bronx. It was 4 a.m.; we were drunk. As the train pulled past Yankee Stadium, Deke got between the subway cars and started to climb up. We were barely able to stand up straight at the bar, so I knew he was going to get in trouble. I grabbed his legs as he reached up to the top of the car. He resisted, but I pulled harder and got him back in the car.

"I'd train surfed before but never drunk and never in the dark," he recalled. "If you had fallen asleep or not stopped me I would have been up there and I know I would have fallen. Either that or a cable or signal pole would have hit me."

The first time I witnessed train surfing I was about 12-years-old and playing basketball by Jerome Ave. If you've never been up there, you may not know that the Bronx is Big Sky country. I looked up at the elevated tracks of the 4 train as it roared by; on top of the last car was a young, slim kid in the pose of a surfer looking like he was the freest kid in New York.

Someone yelled out, "Yo, look up there. Look! He's like Silver Surfer!"

The train pulled into the Kingsbridge Rd. Station and we watched the kid jump down and run off. There was one daring young man, I thought.

The best train surfing was definitely up in the Bronx, and the 2 and 4 trains are still big draws. In Queens, the J line was good for riding; out in Brooklyn, the F line as it goes to Ave. X is a popular spot.

I talked with a few men in Queens standing outside a deli on Parsons Blvd. who knew about the oral history of train surfing.

Jim Jackson, 40: "Train surfing was big in the early 80s. I'm a Queens guy, but I have to admit that is was the Brooklyn guys who taught us about it? The J line was big for surfing. You would see kids scaling up the car and riding on top. Some of them would get real daring and start jumping between cars. I never saw anyone get killed, but I heard about it."

Jesse Phillips, 39, standing nearby: "I'm from Brooklyn and in my high school in the same month three kids died on the L line just like that kid did the other day. It was by Montrose Ave. and the train is still in the tunnel and these kids tried to climb on top. Pow! Three in one month died. Made me never want to do it."

Joe Scott, 39: "Yeah, it was big back in Brooklyn. I knew of a kid who got decapitated on the F train as it went into the Stillwell station [sic]. I remember his name was Felix and he did it all the time. But he did it during the day. He went out one night and he couldn't see everything in the dark. They say his head was severed by a cable, and it bounced off the train car like it was a bowling ball. Just rolled away."

Later, out in Fort Greene, I talked with a few teenagers on Dekalb Ave. They laughed when I asked if anyone of them ever train surfed.

A huge kid named Clyde: "I ain't never done nothing crazy like that. [That's] sick. But I played elevator tag in the projects."

These days, elevator tag is probably the more common stunt among young daredevils. The kids climb on the roof of an elevator car and ride it up and down. The stunt gets real tricky when two cars pass each other and the kids jump off to the other car.

A skinny kid named Malik told me: "Elevator tag is big in the projects. You get a building of 14 floors and you can ride all day. Some kids get crazy with and hang off the side. It's some dangerous shit."

I asked Clyde and Malik if they ever train surfed.

Clyde: "Nah? That's for kids that got something to prove. You got to be crazy to do that."

Malik: "My balls ain't big enough."

They walked off and headed toward a project. Before they left, they made sure to tell me that the building has good elevators.