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The triumphant return of the US's Gulf Coast train

Two decades after Hurricane Katrina halted rail service,~bet Amtrak's new Mardi Gras Service links Mobile and New Orleans, offering travellers coastal views and stories of resilience.

We trundled slowly south out of Mobile, skirting the city's twinkling river. Lofty high-rises and concrete highways coated in pink morning light gave way to historic shipyards, lush forests and peaceful river communities. Fishermen in boats and children in gardens waved at the train with excitement, the conductor sounding the horn in response.

Operated by Amtrak, I was one of the first on board the restored Gulf Coast line, relaunched on 18 August 2025, 20 years after Hurricane Katrina decimated entire coastal communities and wiped out the passenger rail service. Reborn as the Mardi Gras Service – a nod to the pre-Lent traditions celebrated across this former French coast – the new twice-daily service runs between the cosmopolitan waterfront city of Mobile, Alabama, and jazz-infused New Orleans, Louisiana.

As I discovered, it is an almost four-hour journey through one of the country's most scenic but lesser explored stretches of coast. The train winds through Louisiana’s coastal wetlands east of New Orleans?and along Mississippi's shoreline, a quieter area of butter-coloured beaches, fishing villages and walkable seaside towns, all easily accessible from the four station stops en route: Pascagoula, Biloxi, Gulfport and Bay Saint Louis.

The morning and evening departures allow for day trips or overnight journeys. However, I opted for a longer adventure, hopping on and off the train with two overnight stops in coastal Mississippi. And while international visitors will likely board in New Orleans, I started at the other end, in Mobile, a port city of wrought iron balconies and live oaks where the US's first Mardi Gras is said to have taken place in the 1700s.

It was still dark when I arrived at the gleaming new station, lit up by the glare of the giant convention centre. I was at least 30 minutes early for the 06.30 departure, but the shiny blue, red and silver train was already idling on the platform, humming with chatty passengers – most from the local area and eagerly anticipating the journey ahead. Many of them, I quickly discovered, had never travelled on a train before.

"I've been excited to do this trip since they announced its launch years ago," said Harold Arnold from Pensacola in Florida, a first-time rail traveller on his way to New Orleans for a bloody mary at the city's famous revolving Carousel Bar.

Rail Journeys is a BBC Travel series that celebrates the world's most interesting train rides and inspires readers to travel overland.

"We've been on trains in Italy but not the US," added Joanne Bloodworth, from Fairhope, Alabama, travelling with her husband, Pat to New Orleans, who was relieved not to be driving. "It'll be great to relax and take things easy."

A uniformed guard welcomed me in a thick Southern drawl. "New Orleans to the left, Mississippi to the right, have a great trip ma'am," he announced, lifting my small suitcase onto the train. I noticed strings of purple, green and gold beads around his neck, a nod to the tradition of tossing them from parade floats during Carnival celebrations, the colours symbols of justice, faith and power.

I sank into my leather seat in coach class and stretched out with room to spare. When the dining car announcement came, a steady stream of travellers filed past. Two women in white dresses and floral garlands sang as they went, stopping to chat in the queue. "We're visiting family in Biloxi for the day and catching the train back tonight," said Cynthia Davis, who told me she doesn't drive and was excited that she'd no longer have to rely on others for lifts.

? Trains run twice a day – once in the morning and once in the evening – between New Orleans, Louisiana and Mobile, Alabama.

? Tickets start from $15 one way; book on?Amtrak.com.

? Visit in spring and autumn for cooler temperatures, or January and February for Carnival season.

Just 40 minutes later, I disembarked in sunny Pascagoula – where I would spend the night – to locals snapping photos of the train. The city has a compact chic downtown area filled with independent shops and restaurants, and is home to Ingalls Shipbuilding, an 87-year-old company which is one of the biggest employers in the state. I wandered 10 minutes to Lighthouse Park for a waterfront view, a regenerated and surprisingly peaceful space beneath Highway 90 with padel courts and swing chairs dotting plant-lined paths – and bizarrely, where two fishermen in 1973 encountered aliens, according to a sign near the boat landing.

I fell for Ocean Springs, a short taxi ride away. This monied beach town has a boardwalk along its sandy shores and a walkable main street of old-timey shops and new developments. After a deep-fried Gulf Coast shrimp po boy at colourful local favourite The Crawfish House, I searched out the murals of altruistic local artist Walter Anderson at the eponymously named museum. In 1951, he offered to paint the town's community centre – attached to the museum – for just $1 plus expenses, now said to be valued at more than $30 million.

Mobile: Visit Africatown Heritage House?to learn about the city's slavery past; take a?Bienville Bites walking food tour?along music-filled Delphine Street; indulge in fiery oysters and live music at Bluegills.

Gulfport: Pay a visit to Gulf Hills Hotel & Resort in nearby Ocean Springs, Elvis's favourite holiday spot in the 1950s, overlooking tranquil Fort Bayou.

Bay St Louis: See the colourful paintings at the Alice Mosley Folk Art Museum and stop for lunch at family-friendly beach bar and grill The Blind Tiger overlooking the harbour.

An immersive two-hour trip on the Pascagoula River with?Eco Tours of South Mississippi?revealed the scars of Katrina. Drifting through saltmarsh, captain Kendall Smith pointed out a 30ft blue barn in a distant field. "That’s how high the water was after Katrina hit the coast," she said, cutting the engine. We sat for a moment drifting in silent contemplation as if to pay our respects. "The Mississippi coastline took the brunt of the storm, but it didn't get so much international media attention."

The next morning I jumped back on the train, rolling past the Mississippi scenery of my mind's eye: meandering grass-lined bayous and distant humid swamplands lined with huge fan-shaped palmetto palms, towering water tupelos and grand bald cypress trees draped in Spanish moss, where I wished we could have slowed down to look out for alligators.

Waltzing over the Mississippi Sound took us into Biloxi, a glitzy city known for its high-end hotels, fancy restaurants and plethora of casinos, before heading on to the family-friendly city of Gulfport. I spent the night here, and I lost myself mooching around the extensive collection at Sage Coffee and Books, a second-hand bookshop in a 100-year-old wooden cottage with a front veranda. "Surprisingly this property wasn't affected by Katrina," said owner Lara Hammond, who opened her shop in 2006 and hopes the revival of the Gulf Coast line will help boost business in the area.

From here to laid-back Bay St Louis, the route skirted a stretch of coastline battered by the 50-mile-wide eye of Katrina that's now dotted with new homes and infrastructure. This includes the magnificent Bay St Louis Bridge, a 2.1-mile undulating concrete ribbon that unfurls over the Bay of St Louis. Crossing this vast shimmering shallow estuary on tracks overlooking the rebuilt bridge was one of the journey's most spectacular moments, the train slowing and seemingly gliding across the water.

All too soon we'd shimmied through the vast coastal preserves and bayous outside New Orleans and were disembarking at Union Passenger Terminal. The French Quarter beckoned with jazz bars and flambéed Bananas Foster, but first I wanted to pay my respects to the Ninth Ward neighbourhood worst hit by Katrina.

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"It's easy to focus on the negatives," said local historian Rob Florence of Historic New Orleans Tours who showed me around several regenerative initiatives. These include the strengthened flood walls and levee around the Lower Ninth Ward, sporting a freshly painted mural; and the Flooded House Museum, a hard-hitting art installation depicting a family house post-flooding.

We ended in the rainbow-hued Musicians' Village, a community of affordable housing set up in 2006 by jazz musicians Harry Connick Jr and Branford Marsalis with Habitat for Humanity. Singer Margie Perez welcomed me into her home, recalling how she escaped her previous home in the same area with little more than a hula hoop – now her talisman. "I grabbed a change of clothes, my hula hoop and got out," she said, pointing to the pink glittery accessory. "Now I've been here almost 20 years and am this close to paying [my house] off," she added, smiling, "but I still haven't mastered the art of the hoop."

It felt like a fitting close to a journey that is as much about community and recovery as it is about scenery. From one carnival city to another, the Mardi Gras Service has returned – and it feels ready to party on for years to come.

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