In 2025, Amtrak launched its Mardi Gras Service train between New Orleans and Mobile on the Gulf Coast, a service that was suspended in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Train aficionado Daniel Puddicombe travels along the relaunched route which connects the cities for the first time in two decades.
“Ladies and gentlemen, y’all might want to look out to the left-hand side as we often see dolphins from the train,” a voice says over the slightly crackly public address system. “Why don’t y’all come and let me know in the café car, which is now open, how many you spot?”
As subtle advertisements go, this is a solid eight out of 10 from the café car attendant. I’m 30 minutes into the almost four-hour journey along the Gulf coast, the sun has just risen, and the railway is hugging the coastline. On the other side, I see a large swathe of marshlands and a lake in the distance.
I’m traveling aboard Amtrak’s newest route, the Mardi Gras Service. I say ‘newest’ as if it is a brand-new route: In fact, it’s a resumption of a train that previously ran 20 years ago before stopping abruptly when Hurricane Katrina hit the region. As well as obliterating the towns and cities along the coast, the storm wiped out 100-odd miles of the 145-mile-long (233 kilometers) route which links the Louisiana city of New Orleans on the Mississippi River and Mobile, the port city on Alabama’s Gulf Coast.
I’d already spent a couple of days in New Orleans aka the ‘Big Easy’, so-called for its relaxed way of life, exploring the world’s oldest continuously operating streetcar line, the St Charles Line, beloved by both depot staff and locals, tucking into a po’ boy sandwich (typically filled with fried shrimp, lettuce, tomato and remoulade sauce), now a New Orleans lunch staple but originally created to feed streetcar drives. I learnt about the Orlean’s French history, exploring its narrow streets and European-inspired architecture a contrast to America’s signature wide highways and towering skyscrapers.
But now I’m on the move, sitting in the café car, in anticipation of what’s to come as we chug along the coast towards final destionaion: Mobile, Alabama.
Freight services were back up and running in five months after Hurricane Katrina, but passenger trains would wait two decades, following years of fierce campaigning by locals, determined to see services resume again, with stops in in Mississippi at Bay St Louis, Gulfport, Biloxi and Pascagoula.
Its return was hampered by a combination of political and bureaucratic red tape. In 2020, freight operators claimed any resumption would “devastate” freight operations—in the US, most railway lines are owned by individual railway companies and rivals need to negotiate access rights. Eventually, in 2021, federal money was approved to support the services, and now, local and state governments have committed to providing funding for the next few years.
“Since the rail service returned in August, we’ve seen a real uptick in foot traffic and fresh faces. It feels like Bay St Louis is connected again—not just by train, but by new energy and opportunity. Having this service back means growth for all our small businesses.”
- Whitney LaFrance, Mockingbird Café, Bay St Louis
The name, the ‘Mardi Gras Service’, continues a long-standing traditon of Amtrak for giving its services evocative titles; others include the Empire Builder (between Washington State and Chicago) and Pacific Surfliner connecting coastal communities in southern California. Named ‘Mardi Gras’ after the carnival synonymous with both New Orleans and Mobile, it also taps into a friendly rivalry between the two over who first created the festivities.
It’s a comfortable journey so far, with plenty of leg room, large windows and a buffet carriage, and a soundtrack of chatter from my fellow passengers. While it would have been easy to stay on all the way to Mobile, I decide to break at Bay St Louis, the first calling point.
In the few hours I spend in Bay St Louis, it seems like Amtrak is the talk of the town. “I bet he’s traveled on the train,” I overhear a passer-by muse to his friend while I take in the sea view from a bench, while the first thing I’m asked as I order lunch at Murky Waters BBQ, a stone’s throw from the beach, is if I’d traveled by train.
Aside from giving locals an opportunity to spot overseas rail enthusiasts from 10 paces away, it seems the route is already showing a real impact. This was hammered home when I stop at Mockingbird Café later in the afternoon for a drink, and get talking to Whitney LaFrance, its operations director. “Since the rail service returned in August, we’ve seen a real uptick in foot traffic and fresh faces,” she tells me. “It feels like Bay St Louis is connected again—not just by train, but by new energy and opportunity. Having this service back means growth for all our small businesses.”
After spending most of the day by the sea, I arrive back at the station in time to see the evening train for New Orleans arrive and depart—two trains operate in each direction per day. It is fully booked, so due to demand, an extra carriage is added to the formation.
20 minutes later, at 7pm, the train I’m waiting for, heading to Mobile, arrives. Instead of being directed into standard class, the train manager directs me and several others into a declassified business class carriage: It turns out, standard class had been overbooked on this leg too.
While the perception is America doesn’t like trains and everyone drives or flies, I’m seeing with my own eyes the positive impact the restoration of the service has on an area. And as far as I can tell, most of my fellow passengers are locals, or from surrounding states.
“Traditionally the Gulf Coast is an area for people from New Orleans to come to the beach, so this is just an easier way for people to go on vacation for a weekend. Plus, you can have a few drinks as you enjoy the scenery. It’s much better than driving.”
- Robert Sonaye, passenger
In December 2025, Amtrak reported that more than 46,000 journeys had been completed in the first 100 days of operation, more than double the original estimate. How much of this is down to the affordable prices—fares are as low as USD$15 one-way for the length of the route—I don’t know, but as the old adage goes: Build it and they will come.
It’s an atmospheric evening on the leg to Mobile. Fellow passengers are in a jovial mood—perhaps that’s down to the Hurricane cocktails sold onboard. I arrive into Mobile just after 9pm. Welcoming us to the city is a representative from the tourist board, handing out bags containing walking maps and leaflets for local attractions. I’m traveling within a few weeks of services resuming, so I wouldn’t expect the same reception now, but as someone who travels tens of thousands of miles by train each year, I’ve never experienced quite this level of enthusiasm.
A new city awaits and the next morning, I join a cruise along the Mobile River, my main objective to see SS United States which held transatlantic speed records for decades, and is now being dismanteled before it’s needlessly sunk off the coast of Florida to create an artificial reef by 2026.
While I don’t have any particular affinity towards large cruise liners, this feels seems a huge waste of America’s shipping heritage. Also docked are multiple naval vessels, and I get a glimpse of the rail ferry that transports cargo across the Gulf of Mexico to Coatzacoalcos, Mexico.
I bump into a few passengers I’d met on the train the previous day; Robert Sonaye, his wife and his next-door neighbors, all from New Orleans. He tells me he suggested a weekend away in Mobile to purely because the train now exists. “Traditionally the Gulf Coast is an area for people from New Orleans to come to the beach, so this is just an easier way for people to go on vacation for a weekend,” he says. “Plus, you can have a few drinks as you enjoy the scenery. It’s much better than driving.”
The quartet is not the only group I bump into who’ve taken advantage of the train because it now exists. I also encounter folks from Mobile doing the opposite, using the service to go to the Big Easy for a weekend of jazz and beer. In fact, two-thirds of my fellow passengers raise their hands when our tour guide asks how many had traveled by train—the majority from either New Orleans or one of the stops enroute.
It’s on my return to New Orleans, fully in daylight, where I really appreciate the scenery. After leaving Mobile, we pass fields and farmhouses, before the landscape gives away to shipyards near Pascagoula, and from Biloxi onwards, the Gulf Coast opens before your eyes. It’s quite the sight.
Maybe, just maybe, this might just be a tipping point to show America there is merit in letting the train take the strain, after all. When it puts its mind to it, the US does train travel incredibly well—one of my favorite journeys in the world is the Pacific Surfliner between LA and San Diego. It’s just a shame journeys like it and the Mardi Gras Service are the exception rather than the rule.
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To research this story, the writer traveled as a guest of New Orleans & Company and Alabama Travel.
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Daniel Puddicombe is a freelance railway journalist and enthusiast who covers tens of thousands of miles each year by rail around the world. He's at his happiest when traveling behind a steam locomotive on a main line or sat in a restaurant carriage admiring a wonderful view. His work appears in publications such as The Telegraph, the i Paper and the New Zealand Herald, and he's a regular contributor to leading industry title, RAIL.
