The train initially runs parallel to Interstate 10, with cars on the highway outpacing us. You could drive from New Orleans to Mobile in about two hours; the train takes almost double that. But speed isn’t the point. The re-established route is as symbolic as it is practical, a marker of Gulf-coast resilience and a reminder that these cities are linked not just by rails, but by shared history and spirit.
On board there’s a café car, reclining seats and great views.
“This new service will connect us with our nearest neighbours,” says Tyler Black Hernandez, from New Orleans. A non-driver, he’s day-tripping to Mobile with his mother. “Mobile, Biloxi and New Orleans were all capitals of French Louisiana once. Now we’ll have a point of connection to these historic communities, which also serve as our beach getaways.”
The train is an experience in itself. There’s a well-stocked café car and business and coach class each have wide, reclining seats with ample legroom that prove to be ideal vantage points as the Gulf coast views whip by. Eventually, city vistas unravel into a tangle of coastal marshes; a snowy egret skims the rushes and a lone fishing boat ploughs the waters.
Mobile is my final stop and I make early acquaintance with the city’s French heritage. Stately portraits of King Louis XIV and the Mobile founder Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville hang in gilded frames in the newly renovated Admiral Hotel, my base for a few nights.
Outside there are echoes of New Orleans — wrought-iron balconies line Dauphin Street, accordion music wafts from a souvenir store strung with Mardi Gras beads and oaks shade Cathedral Square, home to the oldest parish on the Gulf coast, established in 1703.
“New Orleans is our younger, noisier brother. That’s how we can be the birthplace of Mardi Gras — New Orleans was still a swamp when we were first celebrating…” says Bella Myers, who leads our Bienville Bites food tour that evening. “But there’s a synergy between the cities and a shared history.”
Indeed, Mobile was founded 15 years before New Orleans, and Myers begins this deep-dive into city history at the upscale Dauphin’s restaurant. On the menu is Joe Cain dip, a spinach-and-artichoke mix with Conecuh sausage named for the Confederate veteran credited with reviving the Mardi Gras in Mobile after the Civil War (mains from £20; godauphins.com). Joe Cain Day remains a Mobile tradition, marked with a family-friendly parade on the Sunday before Fat Tuesday. “Mobile was the city that Mardi Gras built,” Myers says.
