After seeing my niece to the NJ Transit train at Penn Station at 11:05 p.m. tonight, I went to take the E train, but saw a sign that it was running on the F line to Queens after 10 p.m. So I went to the downtown platform to go in the other direction and catch the E at West 4th. Once on the downtown platform, I helplessly watched as the Queens-bound E rolled in on the opposite track after all. I just shook my head and got on the downtown train instead.
I got off at West 4th Street, went downstairs and changed to the uptown track. I got on a Queens-bound train that I thought was an F. I looked around and thought, "gee this train is emptier than usual, even at this hour." At 53rd and 5th I realized that I wasn't on the F train at all. I was on a slow-poke, local V train.
I wasn't having a very efficient ride home.
When we got to 23rd Street-Ely a rowdy bunch of people -- some wearing bright orange t-shirts, others in jumpsuits and one in a feeble attempt at a toga -- were jumping up and down and cheering as the train pulled into the station. They got on the back of the train. I heard a passenger in my car mumble something like "why are they getting so excited about a stupid V train?"
And then it dawned on me: this must be the Final Voyage of the V. Or so I thought.
Turns out it was the Second-to-last Voyage of the V. "This is the second-to-last V train to 71st Avenue, Grand Avenue next," the conductor announced with no trace of regret in his voice. The V train was canceled due to budget cuts and will be replaced by the M train, which will run from 71st Avenue along the same line as the old V with an extension through Brooklyn and on to Middle Village in Queens. The conductor told me when I got off at 67th Avenue that he'll be conductor on the M train beginning Monday. As long as he's still got a gig, he said, it's all good.
Instead of going home, I decided it would be fun to take the very last V train to the next -- and very last -- stop. I chatted with a guy wearing an orange shirt who said he heard about the final ride on NewMindSpace.com. They're the people who organize the annual pillow fight in Union Square and the big bubble bath in Times Square, which is scheduled for later today. Everyone was told to wear orange or something "V" related. I looked down at my navy top and blue jeans, disappointed. And then I realized that I was carrying my crochet project in an Aveda shopping bag, so I circled the "v" and wrote "Goodbye, my train" in pen underneath.
The last V train arrived, filled with a couple of cops and a group of people dressed in orange shouting "One last stop! One last stop!" I got on the train, and as the doors closed the crowd began counting down to the next stop, beginning at 30, which was a mistake since the train took its sweet time on its trip to the end of the line. "Teeeeeeeeeen, niiiiiiiiiiiine," they screamed, trying to draw out the countdown as much as possible.
The orange party people (or mourners, if you want to look at it that way), cheered as we arrived at 71st Avenue and there was general merriment on the platform as we gleefully tumbled out of the train.
In all the excitement I got on the Jamaica-bound F train by mistake. But I got off at 75th Avenue and managed to get an E train running local back home.
And if I had stayed on the uptown platform and gotten an E train out of Penn Station in the first place, I never would have enjoyed my crazy, orange-themed Final Voyage of the V.
More on the demise of the V and W trains:
For subways lines that New Yorkers have infamously expressed ambivalence about, the final runs of the V and W lines have inspired a wide array of mourning -- from funerals to parties.
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