20 years after Hurricane Katrina halted rail service, Amtrak’s new Mardi Gras Service hyperlinks Cellular and New Orleans, providing travellers coastal views and tales of resilience.
We trundled slowly south out of Cellular, skirting the town’s twinkling river. Lofty high-rises and concrete highways coated in pink morning gentle gave strategy to historic shipyards, lush forests and peaceable river communities. Fishermen in boats and kids in gardens waved on the practice with pleasure, the conductor sounding the horn in response.
Operated by Amtrak, I used to be one of many first on board the restored Gulf Coast line, relaunched on 18 August 2025, 20 years after Hurricane Katrina decimated total coastal communities and worn out the passenger rail service. Reborn because the Mardi Gras Service – a nod to the pre-Lent traditions celebrated throughout this former French coast – the brand new twice-daily service runs between the cosmopolitan waterfront metropolis of Cellular, Alabama, and jazz-infused New Orleans, Louisiana.
As I found, it’s an virtually four-hour journey by means of one of many nation’s most scenic however lesser explored stretches of coast. The practice winds by means of Louisiana’s Cajun nation, with its miles of grassy bayous and heady festivals, and alongside Mississippi’s shoreline, a quieter space of butter-coloured seashores, fishing villages and walkable seaside cities, all simply accessible from the 4 station stops en route: Pascagoula, Biloxi, Gulfport and Bay Saint Louis.
The morning and night departures permit for day journeys or in a single day journeys. Nonetheless, I opted for an extended journey, hopping on and off the practice with two in a single day stops in coastal Mississippi. And whereas worldwide guests will doubtless board in New Orleans, I began on the different finish, in Cellular, a port metropolis of wrought iron balconies and stay oaks the place the US’s first Mardi Gras is claimed to have taken place within the 1700s.
