Twenty years after Hurricane Katrina, the Mobile - New Orleans railway is running again and it's our train expert's new favourite US ride. - The Mail on Sunday UK

Journalist Tom Chesshyre is shown seated on the left with travel companions aboard the Amtrak Mardi Gras Service in Mobile, AL. 

When Hur­ricane Kat­rina dev­ast­ated the Amer­ican shoreline along the Gulf of Mex­ico in 2005 it took out bridges and sec­tions of rail­way between New Orleans in Louisi­ana, the lively home of jazz music, and the colo­nial city of Mobile, Alabama.

Now, 20 years on, the 145-mile line with a jour­ney time of 3hr 43m across marsh­land along the Deep South’s coast has reopened – and it’s prov­ing pop­u­lar, with two good­value ser­vices a day (£18 one way).

Already an extra car­riage is being added on some week­ends, and its suc­cess is being seen as a post-Kat­rina rebirth.

You hear the ‘Mardi Gras Ser­vice’, oper­ated by Amer­ica’s national train com­pany Amtrak, before you see it. We are board­ing in charm­ing Mobile, the ori­ginal home of the Mardi Gras cel­eb­ra­tions.

The train horns have been blast­ing in the morn­ing – as they were the night before as we sampled oysters on the city’s vibrant Dauphin Street – the sound echo­ing across Mobile’s grid of ante­bel­lum houses.

We ascend the steps to the train by the lazily flow­ing River Mobile, where two huge red, white and blue loco­mot­ives are attached to three gleam­ing stain­less-steel car­riages: Two ‘coach’ class (stand­ard) car­riages and one busi­ness class.

A din­ing area serves hot dogs, break­fast burri­tos, Mich­elob beers and Hur­ricane cock­tails (a punchy, red, fruity New Orleans con­coc­tion fea­tur­ing rum).

You’re soon rolling out of Mobile – at 6.05am – with the sun­rise cast­ing golden light across pine trees along the river.

We’re in busi­ness for this ride, head­ing for the city of Biloxi in Mis­sis­sippi, the first of two planned stops to New Orleans.

The jour­ney is 1h 18m. It’s a relax­ing way to travel, drink­ing cof­fee, the horn blast­ing reg­u­larly. James, the bow tie-wear­ing con­ductor, tells us: ‘I worked all over [on Amtrak]... Chicago, Michigan, Mil­wau­kee – but this is just beau­ti­ful.’

He’s refer­ring in par­tic­u­lar to the final stretch along the Gulf of Mex­ico (or ‘Gulf of Amer­ica’ as Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump calls it) into New Orleans. But first there’s an enjoy­able day explor­ing Biloxi, with its bust­ling casi­nos and Ground Zero Blues Club, co-owned by actor Mor­gan Free­man.

Biloxi was hit hard by Kat­rina, with 6,000-plus build­ings des­troyed and at least 53 lives lost. The city ‘looked like a bomb had hit it’, said one shell­shocked res­id­ent.

Yet res­tor­a­tion since then has been stag­ger­ing. You would hardly guess it had been vir­tu­ally wiped out two dec­ades ago.

We spin onwards, trav­el­ling in coach class this time. The train rattles forth before stop­ping 54 minutes later at a sleepy neigh­bour­hood of single-storey houses with rock­ing chairs on porches lead­ing to a cluster of live-music seafront bars.

Bay St Louis enjoys pretty beaches, a laid-back atmo­sphere as well as the 100 Men Hall, a former black com­munity hall and music venue, where per­formers have included James Brown and Ray Charles. Live music is still occa­sion­ally played, and it’s a good enough reason to stop in the city – the shrimp tacos at the Blind Tiger bar by the mar­ina in close second.

The final ride into New Orleans is cap­tiv­at­ing – you soon find your­self tra­vers­ing swamp­land with flick­er­ing seabirds, and golden reeds. It is, quite simply, won­der­ful.

Once you cross the swamp, you enter New Orleans and watch a met­ro­polis arise – truck depots, con­crete plants, cheap-look­ing motels, high­way fly­overs, storm surge bar­ri­ers and levees. But then you are in the home of Mardi Gras. The thrills and spills of the French Quarter await: Hur­ricane cock­tails aplenty... thank­fully, no hur­ricanes for real.

This article originally appeared in the January 4, 2026, print version of The Mail on Sunday, the UK’s largest weekend newspaper.