May 21 (Bloomberg) -- Toilets and unreliable air conditioning are not a happy combination for traders, bankers and analysts who ride Metro-North Railroad's New Haven Line to Manhattan.

``You never want to sit anywhere near the bathroom, which has constant odor issues,'' said Andrew DeVries, 32, of Stamford, Connecticut, an analyst with bond research firm CreditSights Inc. in New York. ``In the summer, you have to be very careful not to get on a hot car. And you want to make sure you're not sitting next to a piece of equipment that rattles.''

Relief is in sight for commuters in Greenwich, Connecticut, the hedge-fund capital of North America, and other suburbs along Long Island Sound. Connecticut officials today unveiled a prototype of the M8, the first new rail car to be put in service on the line in almost 15 years, at Union Station in New Haven.

The cars, costing $2.38 million each, have been en route since a winter storm exposed the existing fleet's vulnerability in 2004. Some commuters remain dissatisfied, saying the seat configuration will be uncomfortable.

The irony of the train conditions isn't lost on the designer of the new cars, Cesar Vergara of New York-based Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. He said the ``most affluent commuters are the ones in the worst cars.''

About 43 percent of the trains on the New Haven Line use M2 cars, whose average age is 34. The youngest on the route, M6s, average 14 years old. Metro-North is the second-busiest U.S. commuter rail service, after the Long Island Rail Road.

`Pretty Grubby'

``The seats themselves look almost like an old mattress,'' said Richard Jessop, 48, of Rye, New York, director of global markets financing and services for Merrill Lynch & Co. in Manhattan. ``The back and the springs are shot, so if you're sitting, it's literally like sitting on a football bench. They're pretty grubby.''

The cars being rolled out late next year will have roomier lavatories, with waste storage tanks placed farther from passengers, and modern air conditioning systems, said Marjorie Anders, a Metro-North spokeswoman. Windows will be bigger. So will the seats, and they'll have Naugahyde upholstery, more legroom, higher backs and individual headrests.

Some of commuters' advice on the new design was ignored, said Jeffrey Maron of Stamford, a member of the Connecticut Rail Commuter Council. He objects to putting seats three abreast on one side of the aisle.

``We believe this is a significant mistake,'' said Maron, 45, who is head of trading systems for New York-based GFI Group Inc., the largest inter-dealer broker in the credit derivatives market. ``They seem to not want to listen to the voice of the riders.''

First-Hand Experience

Vergara, the designer, rides the New Haven Line himself, traveling each day from Ridgefield, Connecticut, to Grand Central Terminal. He saw the assignment as an opportunity to reduce commuters' aggravation level.

``Your train plays an important part of linking your home life to your work life,'' said Vergara, 51. ``If you can for the same amount of money build a beautiful car, it behooves you to do that.''

Some of the wealthiest commuters in the U.S. ride the New Haven Line. It passes through the affluent Connecticut towns of Darien, New Canaan and Greenwich. All lie in Fairfield County, which has the sixth-highest per-capita income in the country, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Connecticut co-owns the New Haven Line with the state of New York and is paying 65 percent of the $713 million cost for 300 M8 cars being built by Kobe, Japan-based Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority is paying the remainder.

Special Requirement

The cars must be custom-built so they can run on electricity from overhead wires north of Pelham, New York, and on electricity supplied by the third rail when south of there. Equipment from other routes can't be substituted, Anders said.

The need for new cars reached a crisis point after ice, snow and bitter cold disabled half the fleet in February 2004. A month later, Connecticut's then-governor, John Rowland, announced a plan to speed up purchases of cars and locomotives for the New Haven Line. His successor, Governor Jodi Rell, accelerated the plan after taking office last year.

``Connecticut commuters are finally going to get the equipment they deserve,'' Chris Cooper, a spokesman for Rell, said in a telephone interview.

Metro-North's annual passenger load rose to a record 80 million last year. The New Haven is one of three lines it operates east of the Hudson River, along with two lines west of the Hudson.

Squeezing In

The New Haven Line's daily ridership of 70,000 generates another gripe about the train cars.

``Because so many of them are out of service and ridership continues to increase, the overcrowding problem has gotten worse and worse,'' said Jim Cameron, 57, of Darien, a media consultant and chairman of the commuter council.

New Haven passengers are especially vexed when they pull up next to trains on the Harlem and Hudson lines. Most trains on those routes have cars averaging four years old.

``You look over and you see brand new trains going by,'' DeVries said. `And you always say, `Oh man, I wish I was on one of those.'''

To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Dolmetsch in New York at cdolmetsch@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: May 21, 2008 15:52 EDT