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Posted on January 8, 2026 by Teri Greene

Teri Greene

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Amtrak’s Mardi Gras Service embodies how Mobile and the Mississippi Gulf Coast move in tandem.

AT 6:29 A.M., the horn sounds across the Port of Mobile. The train moves westward, past cranes and warehouses. Within minutes, the view shifts from skyline to marsh. Amtrak’s Mardi Gras Service once again links Mobile to the Mississippi Gulf Coast and New Orleans after a two-decade break.

For many along this route, the excitement that began 20 years after Hurricane Katrina’s decimation of tracks interrupted passenger train service isn’t so much about celebration; it’s more of an acknowledgment of something that already exists. The coast has always acted like one place. From Mobile to Bay St. Louis, families live in one direction and work in the other. Patients travel to Mobile for specialized neonatal and cancer care. Ten percent of University of South Alabama students are from Mississippi, most from coastal towns along these tracks.

Industry reinforces the same idea. Ship-building in Pascagoula supports the success of the Port of Mobile. Seafood moves up and down the shoreline. Storm recovery has always been a collaborative effort, from 1969’s Hurricane Camille to Katrina and beyond. If the view suggests a continuous coastline, daily life confirms it.

The Gulf Coast’s unity predates modern boundaries. French colonial settlements viewed this shoreline as a single community. Mardi Gras traditions, still celebrated centuries later, show how culture united long before state lines mattered. The railroad’s path through Mississippi followed those connections.

Outsiders have not always recognized that identity. During national coverage of Hurricane Isaac in 2012, one media outlet pointed to a weather map and referred to Mississippi as “the land mass between New Orleans and Mobile.” Locals turned the phrase into a joke, but it hinted at a deeper dismissal. The Mardi Gras Service offers something visible and everyday that pushes back. People boarding and stepping off in coastal towns show the region is not a gap, but a series of destinations. Getting here took time.

“It was one of the most difficult collaborations I have ever been involved with, but anything worthwhile is usually hard,” says David Clark, president and CEO of the Visit Mobile tourism agency. States, cities, federal agencies and the Port of Mobile all had to unite to make it happen.

Local leaders see a clear opportunity. Clark says the train is already bringing new visitors into downtown. Hotels are seeing guests arrive from the train platform, next to the National Maritime Museum of the Gulf in the heart of downtown Mobile, with luggage in tow. In a tourism economy built on movement, passenger rail expands the range of where visitors come from and where they go next.

Gulfport Mayor Hugh Keating, a 1974 University of South Alabama alumnus, sees the same potential along Mississippi’s coast. He says residents regularly take the trip just for the experience. The train itself becomes part of the destination. He points to Gulfport’s evolving tourism district, including the Mississippi Aquarium and the Gulfport Museum of History, as a place now easier for riders to reach without driving.

The convenience, Keating says, matters for more than weekend plans. It keeps young adults connected to the region for entertainment, work and family. “Whether you get off in Gulfport, Mobile or New Orleans,” he says, “you’re still on the Gulf Coast.”

The service also aligns with broader investments in culture and commerce on both sides of the Alabama-Mississippi line. In Bay St. Louis, Gulfport, Biloxi and Pascagoula, tourism and economic development leaders are preparing for a steady increase in visitors who don’t need a car. In Mobile, riders can walk straight into historic districts, galleries and eateries. The same is true in Mississippi’s coastal cities, where stops place passengers near waterfront districts and downtown blocks.

The route follows the curve of the shoreline through Bay St. Louis and along working waterfronts, then traverses the thin, watery strip of land between lakes Pontchartrain and Borgne toward New Orleans, where the Mississippi River becomes the defining landmark. The ride covers about 145 miles, crossing borders that hardly register in the landscape. What begins in Mobile and ends in New Orleans feels less like a departure and more like a reminder of what connects the coast.

The Mardi Gras Service doesn’t create that link. It provides access to the route via a trip that feels nostalgic, even for riders who have never stepped onto a train before. And for the first time in a long time, it makes that connection visible and tangible. 

IF YOU GO: Trains leave downtown Mobile twice a day, at 6:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., with stops in Pascagoula, Biloxi, Gulfport and Bay St. Louis in Mississippi, ending at the Union Passenger Terminal in New Orleans at 10:13 a.m. and 8:13 p.m. Adult coach fares end-to-end start at $15 each way.

 

AMTRAK-tions

FUN WITHIN A SHORT WALK of Amtrak’s Mardi Gras Service stops in Mississippi

 

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