If riders on the beleaugured New Haven Line were hoping to slide their fannies into the slick new seats of the glimmering M8 cars this year, they’re out of luck–and will remain tethered to the dreaded catenary wires for at least another eight months.

An MTA spokesperson said the new M8s will be tested in Connecticut in November, and then will start replacing the crappy old delay-prone cars on the New Haven Line in May. The November test will not involve actual passengers, which means commuters do not ride the M8s this year.

You’re not alone if you thought you’d actually get to ride in an M8 along the New Haven Line this year.

Early in 2008, an MTA press release spoke of “plans for delivery of the first M-8 prototype rail car in late 2009. After that, the production schedule calls for the delivery of 10 cars per month.”

In June 2008, the NY Times reported: 

The new car is known as the M8 and it will begin to show up on Metro-North’s New Haven line late next year, replacing cars that are as much as 35 years old. 

The MTA spokesperson says it’s primarily a Connecticut Department of Transportation (CDOT) issue. “Whatever CDOT says, we believe them,” he says.

The CDOT Website is vague about when the M8 cars will arrive:

Our goal is to build the first prototype rail cars in late 2008. Over the following five years, the remaining passenger cars will arrive and be placed in service on the New Haven Line.The first 100 cars delivered will be in addition to the current fleet and the remainder will replace the M-2 cars from the 1970’s. A total of approximately 350 rail cars for passenger and café use will be built.

Who rides the M8 bus anymore? Funny you should ask.

In fact, the ill-fated M8 bus’s riders include an Elle editor, an artist/author, a kid named Woolfie, a drunk guy in a wheelchair and the Doughnut People all ride the M8, which is about to see its service drastically cut in the doomsday budget.

Writes Elle’s Miranda Purves:

Woolfie and I made our “doughnut friends,” a single mom and her son, who get on with a different doughnut every day, and now always sit behind us. The two boys both speak public transit. “What’s your favorite train?” Woolfie asks, running his toy N express train along the back of the seats. “The G!” his friend says, referring to the one train that doesn’t dip through Manhattan on its way from Queens to Brooklyn.

 For a full diagram of real-life bus riders, click on the link.

The new edition of Metro-North mouthpiece Mileposts, on seats this morning, has an italicized sentence buried fairly deep in a story about the railroad’s 94% customer satisfaction rating.

“The arrival of our M8s next year should improve your experience–and our ratings,” it reads, by way of an explanation as to why the beleaugered New Haven Line lagged well behind the others in terms of satisfaction. 

So the M8s–headrests, nice bathrooms, electrical outlets–won’t arrive until next year. I was under the impression they were to be ushered in this year. Why did I think that?

Well, almost exactly a year ago, then MNR president Peter A. Cannito said in a statement:

“Seeing a mock-up of the M-8 car has shown us that the dream of a new commuter rail car on the New Haven line is becoming a reality.  Although we are still more than a year away from seeing the prototype cars in operation in this country…”

Later on in that release, Metro-North stated: 

…with plans for delivery of the first M-8 prototype rail car in late 2009. After that, the production schedule calls for the delivery of 10 cars per month. 

No less a journal of record than the New York Times had the M8 start date in 2009 as well. From June 2008:

The new car is known as the M8 and it will begin to show up on Metro-North’s New Haven line late next year, replacing cars that are as much as 35 years old.

Perhaps I’m wrong, but I take “delivery of the first M8 prototype” to mean, ya know, up and running. Because you wouldn’t deliver a completed, functional car, then make riders sit on crappy, stankin’ 35-year-old cars. Would you? 

Our blogging brethren StationStops has some of the best M8 video you’ll ever find here.

UPDATE: Metro-North spokesperson says: “Only the first eight pilot cars will arrive this year for acceptance testing.  The production cars will begin delivery next spring.”

I (TJ)  understand this to mean a small batch of the M8s will be tested on the tracks and used for employee training, and won’t carry actual riders until well into 2010.

If you’re sitting on a Metro-North car tomorrow afternoon, and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, and it’s a really nice car with headrests and electrical outlets and bathrooms that, if you close your eyes, you don’t even realize they’re there, you probably got on the new demo model of the M-8 that’s on display at 2 p.m. Thurs.

MTA Chairman Dale Hemmerdinger (that name’s a real humdinger!) and Metro-North president Peter Cannitto will be there to say a few words at track 25.

The M-8s will be pressed into service on the New Haven line at some point next year.  

Our Metro-North blogger brethren StationStops has some very well-produced video taken at the New Haven Metro-North station that offers a glimpse inside the futuristic M8 cars that are slated to pop up on the New Haven Line next year.

StationStops likes the vacuum toilets, the headrests and larger windows–things us Hudson and Harlem liners take for granted–as well as outlets for charging phones and PDAs and for plugging in laptops (ah, the live-blogging capabilities!).

It’s a tidy little video that’s available in HD as well.