"Subway surfing, in which people ride atop or hang off the sides of fast-moving trains, has been around since the transit system’s earliest days more than a century ago."

"But it has grown more deadly in recent years, especially among teenagers inspired by sensational videos of the practice, city officials say.... City and state officials and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority have ramped up efforts to dissuade young people from subway surfing. Since 2023, the police have used drones to catch subway surfers in the act. The M.T.A. has been working with social media platforms, including Instagram and TikTok, to remove subway surfing footage...."

From "2 Girls Found Dead Atop a J Train in Suspected Subway Surfing Accident The teenagers, found unconscious on the roof of a train in Brooklyn, appear to be the latest casualties of a popular and deadly game" (NYT).

The New York subway system began in 1904, and I wondered about those early incidents. Here's a report in the NYT from May 16th of that year:

Two boys, thirteen and fourteen years old, who had tried to get a free ride on a New York Central train coming into this city late Saturday night, were found on top of a tall refrigerator car early yesterday morning, both seriously hurt and one dying. They had struck a low bridge while seated on top of the car. The less seriously injured had held his dying comrade in his arms during the long trip down.

The train is known as Albany Local No. 80.... The train had reached the yards at the Grand Central Station, and the trainmen were preparing to switch out the cars when one of them discovered the two boys on top of the tallest car of the lot. One of them was holding the limp body of the other in his arms. The trainmen climbed up and carried both boys to the trainshed, and had Policeman Miller of the Grand Central Station send for an ambulance.

One of the boys was conscious, and was able, in a dazed way, to tell that he was Arthur Stretch, fourteen years old, of 204 West Thirteenth Street, and that the other boy was his cousin, Edward Gilday, thirteen years old, of 370 West Twelfth Street. They had climbed on the cars at Poughkeepsie to tramp their way to New York. They chose the refrigerator car because it was wide and high. They were enjoying their ride seated on top of the car, when somewhere along the line as the train was rushing along they struck a low bridge. They had been knocked down, but did not roll off the car.

The boys were taken to the Flower Hospital, where Gilday died at 2:50 o'clock in the morning....

"We had ridden up," the boy [Stretch] said, "so we thought it would be as easy to ride home again. We walked a long way until we came to a station. We must have walked ten miles. We saw a train moving out, and climbed on it. It was then dark, so we got on the big car because the sides didn't slope. It was so dark at times that we could hardly see. However, we lay flat most of the time, and passed under several bridges and through several tunnels. We were down near New York somewhere, or I thought we were, when the accident happened. Eddie was near the centre of the car and to one side in a kneeling position, and I was standing up just in back of him and had my face to the rear of the train. He said something to me, and just then something struck my cousin and knocked him against me. I was thrown hard on top of the car and rolled over and over until I fell down between the cars. I thought it was all over with me, but I reached out my hand and caught the iron ladder down near the bottom. I was so far down I could almost see under the car. My foot caught in something at the same time. Then I pulled myself up, and climbed on top of the car. Eddie was lying there still, and I thought he was dead. There was a hole in his head, and I took out my handkerchief to stop the blood. I shook him, but he didn't move. Then I felt for his heart and found it was beating, and I knew he was alive. While I was bending over to feel his heart a drop of blood fell on my hand from my head. That was the first I knew I had been hurt myself. I then held on to Eddie till we pulled into the station. A man came along with a lantern and I called to him. Then they got us down and the ambulance came."

Those boys were riding for transportation, not for a stunt or a thrill. I wouldn't connect what they were doing to the "subway surfing" done today, where risking your life is the point.