Metro-North doesn’t seem to envision bar cars in its future, reports the NY Times, which says it looks unlikely those bygone-era relics will fit into the long-awaited rollout of the M8 cars on the New Haven Line last this year.

Much as I enjoy and respect the Times, I have to say–reporter Michael Grynbaum includes every last cliche about commuting to the suburbs in his story. Reference to Don Draper and Mad Men? Check. Reference to John Cheever’s short fiction? Check, mate. Weepy homages to bar car bonhomie?

He squeezes them all into one sentence, in fact:

The bar car is a mainstay of the commuting life, a lurching lounge on wheels inseparable from the suburbia of Cheever and “Mad Men.” “The commute is so bad as it is,” explained Paul Hornung, a financial worker, as he sipped a Stella Artois. “This is the one thing you can look forward to.”

Here’s my issue. Is the bar car really, truly a “mainstay of the commuting life”? Grynbaum notes in his story that bar cars have long since been phased out on Long Island Railroad and New Jersey Transit. They’ve also been phased out on the Hudson and Harlem Lines….assuming those lines ever had those stankin’ basement-bars-on-wheels.

[By the way, what the heck is Paul “Golden Boy” Hornung doing drinking on the train? to Stamford]

I don’t know that I’ve ever consumed a potent potable on Metro-North, and I, ya know, follow the intersection of commuter trains and booze pretty carefully. While bar cars are surely meeting spots for friends old and new to enjoy a tipple, I’m guessing most New Haven Line riders would prefer to quaff their Bud tallboy in a normal seat in a normal car, instead of on these anachronistic oddities.

Metro-North officials say the decision to possibly eliminate the bar cars is all about–surprise surprise–money.

A new fleet of cars will soon replace the 1970s-era models now used by commuters on the Metro-North Railroad line heading to Connecticut. But with money tight, railroad officials said they could not yet commit themselves to a fresh set of bar cars, citing higher costs for the cars’ custom design.

“They’re being contemplated,” said Joseph F. Marie, Connecticut’s commissioner of transportation. “But we have not made any final decisions.”

Defenders of the boozy commute say it helps raise revenue: After expenses, bar cars and platform vendors made $1.5 million last year, up from $1.3 million in 2008. (Officials would not say if a bar car makes more money than a car with the normal number of seats.) So far, 300 new train cars have been purchased, featuring airline-style headrests and graceful luggage racks. But officials say the bar cars remain a low priority, and may not be ordered.

“A decision was made early on that more seats on the trains was our top priority and that bar cars — as popular as they are — could wait,” said Judd Everhart, a spokesman for Connecticut’s department of transportation, which operates New Haven Line trains in conjunction with Metro-North. “It was about that simple.”

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.