There's the conga line of overheated straphangers walking between cars.

"People are trying to find a car with air conditioning. Because it's terrible in here," said one commuter.

And there's the dash from one subway car to the next, as riders on steamy trains on the Number 1 line chase an elusive chill.

"One, two, three, I was gone! I ran out the door," said one commuter.

Then, there's the step in and step out, another familiar maneuver among riders on a line that the MTA concedes has the bulk of "hot cars."

"I got off on the last one that I took to get off and escape the heat. And then I got on this one and it's even worse," said one commuter.

"I thought I was gonna melt! It was so hot," said another.

The MTA says that about 2 percent of the 5,400 or so subway cars it runs daily may have non-working air-conditioning, with many clustered on the 1, whose cars are from the mid-1980s, among the oldest in the fleet.

Since May, the agency says it's repaired 787 air-conditioning units on cars that run on the 1.

"When we find these cars or when we receive a customer complaint about them, we bring them in for inspection or repair," the MTA says in a video.

Cars on the 1 line are especially prone to reports of faulty air-conditioning because their single ventilation and heating unit is beneath the car - unlike newer cars, which have them on the roof,

"What we need to do is move to an all-modern fleet where you have modern units that are equipped with state of the art air conditioning that draws from the roof, not from the underside of the unit," said New York City Transit President Andy Byford.

That depends on the MTA finding the funding for a transit overhaul plan, meaning that 1 train riders are likely to suffer through several more sweaty summers on cars with faulty A/C.

One thing you're assured of on the hot cars on the Number 1 line is that during off-peak hours, there will be plenty of good seating available.

One rider said he's not sweating the hot cars.

"You just kind of have to deal with the cards that you're dealt," he said.

For many sweaty 1 train riders, that's been a bad hand.