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?”
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…