1. Doors recycled 4 times
2. Held in station; departed @ 4:14 PM
3. Held in station; departed @ 4:19 PM

June 14, 2005 was yet another busy day of railfanning as I once again hit up every borough but Staten Island. I recall the weather was nice so I wanted to spend most of my time shooting. I decided to sneak in a "c.o.t" before I started shooting though. However this one didn't exactly go as planned.

Once again my trip started from my grandfather's apartment so it was the BX5 to the 6 to the E. I finally arrive at 71st Ave-Forest Hills & am ready to begin. I get out of the E & as I did, I saw the V leave to turn around. I go to the other side of the station & wait for the train to arrive. The V shows up & I sit in the first car which was car #6204.

I was the only person in the 1st car so I decided to get a few interior shots. I got so distracted with taking them that I totally missed when we left so this "c.o.t" was ruined. I could have just left it for another day but I didn't. I got off at Jackson Heights/Roosevelt Ave & turned right back around. I saw an E approaching the station so I made a run for it & easily made it.

I finally get to 71st Ave/Forest Hills & make my way back to the downtown platform. The R came in first & sat for 2 minutes. The V (6204) was right behind it & we left a couple of minutes later. I made sure my camera was away this time! I pulled out my trusty mini notebook & started getting setup to record the data. This time I didn't have the first car to myself.

Since it was a tad after 3:30 when this trip started, the train had its share of high school students. Unfortunately my car seemed to get the dumbest ones of the bunch. As we were pulling out of the station, these monkeys decided to start doing gymnastics in the train. They felt the need to do backflips, cartwheels & whatnot. I'm just observing them from the opposite end of the car acting like fools. I figured after they got it out of their system, they would calm down. Boy was I dead wrong!

The monkeys have become bored with gymnastics & decide to engage in spitball type throwing. These morons were taking flyers that were left on the floor & started throwing them at other passengers in the car. I looked down their way & gave them a look daring them to throw something at me. I am pretty sure they had it in mind as I caught them looking my way on a few occassions. The one thing I felt though was they would literally have to come near me to hit me as the paper wasn't going to go from end to end.

Unfortunately two passengers were hit with the papers but didn't say anything as they looked scared to confront the group. I minded my own business even though the temptation was there to say something. I however know when to pick my battles & I was busy anyway! I forgot which stop it was, but a very muscular male got on the train & I found it quite hilarious that once he did, they refused to do anything stupid. Even though they were in a group of atleast 4, they seemed quite intimidated by this man. I was glad they were & they eventually got off 2 stops later.

As far as the ride went, I hated it. Besides having the circus in town for an unannounced performance, the ride seemed to drag. The last few stops were annoying as we were held at W 4th St & Broadway-Lafayette. Thankfully the misery ended at 4:20 PM & I was off to Brooklyn to shoot.