This report comes to you from New Orleans where, at this writing, a new Amtrak service started Monday, Aug. 18. Following a celebratory Aug. 16 run, Mardi Gras Service got officially under way, with the departure of Train 24 for Mobile, Ala., at 7:35 AM. Several Amtrak managers and other employees were on hand to see the train off.
Train 24’s consist included two Siemens Charger ALC-42s, one at each end for push-pull operation. There were two Amfleet II 25000-series coaches, which are also used on long-distance trains that serve New York, and a snack-lounge car with business class seating. There was enough time before departure to purchase a quarter of a Muffuletta (a classic New Orleans sandwich combining a homemade olive salad with layers of thin-sliced Italian cold cuts) to eat on my way back home on Train 20, the Crescent. The Muffuletta was made in the suburban town of Kenner, and it represents the return of some New Orleans food specialties to Amtrak for the first time in more than 20 years. Amtrak’s poster for the new service includes a new slogan: “Y’all Aboard!” but conductors still make the traditional call. This morning, it was “all aboard!” for Mississippi and Mobile for the first time in nearly two decades.
There are two round trips per day on Mardi Gras Service between the Crescent City and Mobile, Ala., with intermediate stops at four locations along the Mississippi Gulf Coast: Bay St. Louis, Gulfport, Biloxi, and Pascagoula. Getting those trains onto the rails required an effort spanning nearly two decades, representing the time since the Gulf Coast segment of the Sunset Limited between New Orleans and Florida was discontinued in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast in 2005. The storm knocked out all Amtrak service in the region, but the trains to New York, Chicago and Los Angeles came back. Trains east of the New Orleans did not until now, as Amtrak’s new Mardi Gras Service made its debut. The new trains bring rail passenger service back to the region less than two weeks short of two decades since the last scheduled trains ran along the line, on a tri-weekly schedule at that time.
This writer dubbed the latest struggle to bring passenger trains to the Gulf Coast the “Second Battle of Mobile.” As an actual legal battle, it had lasted almost four years, roughly the duration of the American Civil War of 1861-65, when the original Battle of Mobile was fought. The conflict pitted Amtrak against host railroads CSX (on its component, the Mobile & New Orleans, almost all the route) and Norfolk Southern (on the Back Belt in New Orleans) and the Port of Mobile. It included public hearings, an unprecedented eleven-day trial before the Surface Transportation Board (STB), and eventual peace negotiations that resulted in the first service on the line in nearly two decades and the first daily service since before Amtrak was founded in 1971.
There are several aspects to this story. One is the name Mardi Gras Service, with its historical and cultural significance. Another is the inaugural ride itself, which took place on Saturday, Aug. 16. There is also a political story, along with a story about new mobility, and I will take each in turn.
Mardi Gras Name Explained
Until it was announced that the new trains would be called the Mardi Gras Service, nobody knew what name would be selected. The name seems to be an excellent choice, as the Mardi Gras celebration is one of the most popular events of the year along the entire route, especially at both ends of it. The phrase “Mardi Gras” means “Fat Tuesday,” the last opportunity to feast before Lent, a season of self-denial in the Catholic tradition, which begins on Ash Wednesday and lasts until Easter. The day caps off Carnival, a month-long celebration in the winter. Carnival is celebrated in warm places like Trinidad and Brazil, but the Gulf Coast features the American version of the celebration. New Orleans has the biggest and most famous celebratory season, but Mobile also celebrates it, and a rivalry between those two cities about who was first and who has the best celebration was a topic of conversation by local elected officials from both places during the Aug. 16 festivities. Biloxi has a Mardi Gras celebration, too, and all three cities have museums about their own versions of the event.
The day’s activities began at the Union Passenger Terminal in New Orleans about 6:45 AM, to allow plenty of time for boarding before the 8:00 departure. Everyone present was serenaded by the Stooges Brass Band, in the New Orleans tradition. Officials from the City, the FRA, and Amtrak made statements. So did elected officials, including local members of Congress and Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, who was one of the major players in the effort to get the trains going. In the Mardi Gras tradition, leaders of two krewes (clubs that participate in planning and executing parades and other Carnival festivities and are involved in other civic activity) spoke officially. Leaders of the Krewe of Rex (founded in 1872) and the Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club (predecessor founded in 1909; Louis Armstrong was “King of the Zulus” for the 1949 celebration) proclaimed good wishes for the new train service before the band led the march out the door and onto the platform, followed by the riders in the “second line” as they prepared to board.
At all four stops in Mississippi, well-wishers, perhaps as many as a thousand or two, showed up at the stations to see the train and greet it as it stopped and listen to music from local bands and speeches by mayors and other officials. Many members of the crowd were decked out in outfits showing the Mardi Gras colors of green, gold and purple. Amtrak President Roger Harris also wore a shirt that sported those colors, and received a number of favorable comments for doing so. The celebrations along the route began before the train came through, and continued after it left. Sen. Wicker made six speeches, the final being at a reception at the Mobile Convention Center. At each stop, Harris presented the mayors, who also made remarks, with a round sign that bore the Amtrak logo and the words “An Amtrak-Served Community.” Effective now, those communities fit that description.
Mobile has its own Mardi Gras and its own brass band. We were greeted by the music of the Excelsior Brass Band, which was founded in 1883, and who proved they could swing as much as New Orleanians on a spiritual tune popular in the Crescent City: Down by the Riverside. The riders “marched” to the Convention Center to the band playing chorus after chorus of Margie, past a diversified bevy of young women decked out in antebellum-style “Southern Belle” dresses. According to John Sharp, the reporter who covered the event for the Mobile Press Register (and was helpful to this writer in covering this continuing story), the clubs that participate in Mobile’s Carnival call themselves “mystical societies” instead of “krewes” as in New Orleans. Regardless of the name, the entire trip was a celebration of a unique and famous aspect of the culture of a portion of the South.
The Train Ride
The ride itself was perhaps the most special part of the entire celebration. It was a round trip from New Orleans to Mobile, anticipating by two days the trains that would soon take passengers along the Gulf Coast twice each day in each direction, for the first time in decades. In a sense, the ride officially began about 25 minutes before actual departure, at the conclusion of the ceremony at the New Orleans station, when Conductor Fred George called “All Aboard” and the Second Line of eager riders made their exit.
Led by two Siemens Charger locomotives, the train consist included a a “Bag/Dorm” car (a crew car), four Amfleet II cars used for long-distance trains running east of New Orleans and Chicago, two snack lounge cars with business class seats, a business class car, and Inspection Car 10004, American View.
The trip began at 8:00 AM and proceeded through the terminal track and the NS Back Belt (historically Southern Railway) to Gentilly Yard in the Crescent City, also part of the route on Trains 19 and 20 from and to New York. After that, the rest of the route was on the New Orleans & Mobile (NO&M), formerly part of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad (L&N) and now part of CSX. Scheduled running time for the route is 3 hours and 25 minutes, end to end, although the inaugural run did not meet that schedule. Revenue service runs are Train 23 from Mobile at 6:30 AM; Train 24 from New Orleans at 7:35 AM; Train 25 from Mobile at 4:30 PM; and Train 26 from New Orleans at 5:31 PM.
The ride was relatively smooth, although there were some rougher spots. Some of the route is rated for 79 mph, but other parts are rated for 69 or 60 mph. The land is low-lying and flat, with swampland, inlets, and larger bodies of water like Biloxi Bay. There is no dramatic scenery, but the route is pleasant. It largely reminded this writer of stretches of railroad in New Jersey, including the segment of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor (NEC) used by trains serving Penn Station New York on Amtrak and NJ Transit, and by NJ Transit trains serving historic Hoboken Terminal. Some of the line was also reminiscent of that agency’s North Jersey Coast Line at the Jersey Shore.
The stations varied considerably, as do the towns along the route, but all of them have new platforms with accessibility features. The platforms themselves are short, as proposed consists will include only two coaches and a snack-lounge car with tables and business class seats. The trains will include a locomotive at one end and a cab at the other, for push-pull operation. Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari, normally based in Chicago, took charge of reporters and placed us at the front of the train, which required a short hike to the platform and the location of the crowds and the festivities at each station. We had about 15 minutes at each intermediate stop, while Sen. Wicker, Amtrak President Harris, and local officials made speeches welcoming the inaugural train and the new service. Every stop boasted a large and enthusiastic crowd, local bands providing music, and a sea of gold, green, and purple, the colors that honor Mardi Gras at any time of year by order of the Krewe of Rex in 1892.
The train arrived at Mobile at 12:39 PM, and a reception with food and speeches at the Mobile Convention Center followed. Part of the deal that got the service started was the construction of a new station track and platform, including a new layover track adjacent to the existing track. The inaugural special did not use the new track and platform but instead used the old one for the last time.
The ride back was not as eventful but had more of the flavor of a “regular” run. The train left Mobile at 3:17 PM. There were thunderstorms with heavy rain on the way back, and more than a few drops found their way onto the floors of the vestibules inside the cars. The rain had held off until the train was in Mississippi on the way back to New Orleans, and it did not dampen the party atmosphere in either the coaches or the lounge cars, as the good times continued to roll, to paraphrase the New Orleans motto. Riders had boarded at each of the Mississippi stops, so the train stopped to discharge them. By the time the train arrived at the Crescent City at 6:58 PM, the sun had returned.
Food and New Orleans are inseparable. Even at the end of the trip, riders were treated to another local snack, as Magliari announced to everyone as they passed the head end of the train to enter the station. They were Hubig’s Hand Pies, a local brand of turnovers with some icing on the outside and pie filling of various flavors on the inside. These “pies” for the occasion came in apple and lemon flavors and bore a special label with the words: “The Inaugural Amtrak Mardi Gras Service.” In regular service, the trains are offering some Crescent City specialties, including Muffulettas and Community Coffee, a popular local brand.
Everyone with whom this writer spoke was excited about the service, which is the first new Amtrak route in decades and the first of what Amtrak officials hope will be several new corridors and other routes to be established in cooperation with the states. Harris told Railway Age: “I think the potential for the future is huge. There’s been renewed interest in passenger rail around the country. This new route is an example. It’s not just the Northeast.”
At trainside, as we walked toward the station, Magliari had the last word of the trip, telling Railway Age “It’s been a super day because of all the folks who turned out.” Thus, an Amtrak representative and longtime journalist summed up a day that everybody seemed to enjoy, both because of the train itself and the anticipation of a new line that, as you read this, has already started revenue service.
The Political Story
As we reported, political speeches were part of the day’s activities. Political figures from Mississippi, both elected officials and others in the Magnolia State, played a large role in getting the new service going. Knox Ross, Chair of the Southern Rail Commission (SRC), told Railway Age that the effort went back for at least 15 years, to early efforts by former Sen. Thad Cochrane. Current Sen. Roger Wicker also pushed for the service since he took office. During the confirmation hearing for former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in the Biden Administration, Wicker asked the only question of the entire hearing about passenger rail, and it was about the effort to get the Gulf Coast service going.
Ross was one of the major players in the effort. He is an accountant and former mayor of his town. He spoke often at rail conference and elsewhere about his organization, and how it has been so helpful that the SRC was established by Congress. There seems little doubt of that, since it was the organization officially designated to receive the grants that paid for capital improvements for the host railroads.
John Robert Smith, another former Mississippi mayor (of Meridian, on the route of Amtrak’s Crescent train between New York and New Orleans) and former Chair of the Amtrak Board, was pushing the effort, too. He is now head of Transportation4America (“T4America”), a not-for-profit organization that promotes activity around train stations and intermodal connectivity. When this writer first met him about 25 years ago, he held the Amtrak and municipal posts and mentioned several good ideas for service expansions. None had been implemented, but the portion of one, at least as far as Mobile, is now in service. Maybe more, like a train between Meridian and Dallas, will start someday.
Most of the speeches, made at New Orleans, at Mobile, or in Mississippi, came from elected officials. Sen. Wicker made his sixth and final speech of the trip at Mobile. At the same place, so did Congressman Rick Larson, a Democrat who came from northwestern Washington State, further away than anybody else to attend the event. On several occasions, there was a spirit expressed of bipartisanship, rare in the United States today, but the beginning of the new train route after nearly two decades of efforts to get service restored is a celebratory occasion. In his statement for Amtrak, Harris noted that there will be 30 new Amtrak jobs based in New Orleans to support the train, and that there will be more service along the line than there had been in more than 54 years. In actuality, the period was somewhat longer. The one disappointing note was in the remarks made by Acting FRA Administrator Drew Feeley, a Birmingham native. He complained about Amtrak trains that were dirty and about the food (a complaint also expressed by some riders), but he complimented the inaugural special. He also noted that the agency was pleased to support the new service on the 145-mile route and mentioned the $178 million in Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) grants from the FRA.
Getting away from the bipartisan expressions of the moment and looking again at the situation that appertains today, there is one question with an answer that will say a lot about the future of passenger trains in the United States, and more specifically about the future of Amtrak’s Connects US plan to establish more state-supported corridors and other routes during the next decade. Between the first time the initiative was announced in April 2021 and the end of 2035, almost 30% of the time has gone by, yet the new Mardi Gras Service route is the first to be established. This is due in part to the resistance to the new trains from the host railroads, while the effect of partisan politics remains to be seen.
There are several states that join with Amtrak in financing and otherwise facilitating corridors and other trains running within their borders or into neighboring states. Many are in “blue” states like California, Washington, Illinois and New York State. Others are in “purple” states like North Carolina, Virginia, and Pennsylvania (while transit, especially in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, is in deep trouble).
There have been a few experiments with state-supported trains in “red” states, where Republicans dominate, and most have not done well. There were short-lived experiments with a train from Mobile ln the morning that returned from New Orleans later in the day during the 1980s and 1990s. Neither lasted for as long as one year. In 2019, the governor of Indiana killed the Hoosier State between Chicago and Indianapolis on the days that the tri-weekly Cardinal did not run. The Heartland Flyer between Fort Worth and Oklahoma City almost bit the dust when Texas did not authorize money for that state’s share of the expenses to keep it going, but a local governmental organization filled in the gap and bought the train a reprieve for next year. There have usually been two daily round trips between St. Louis and Kansas City, but one is removed from the schedule when Missouri cuts funding.
The Deep South is a strongly Republican area, with only a few Democrats who hold office in the region, (especially in New Orleans and other cities. Amtrak trains have become a partisan issue in many places during recent years. Transit is suffering the same fate as the COVID relief money that kept transit going during the pandemic, as it’s running out. The future looks bleak for transit, as we have been reporting for the past two years.
Still, political advocates like Knox Ross and Amtrak officials like Roger Harris have expressed optimism about the new route and more potential routes around the country. They appear to be noting the enthusiasm of the crowds who came to the Gulf Coast stations to welcome the inaugural trains, and they appear to expect that the enthusiasm will turn into enough riders to make the route a success. Time will tell, and we will probably learn more over the next three years. If they are, the Mardi Gras Service will mark a major turning point in Amtrak’s efforts to start more trains on new state-supported routes.
The Mobility Story
It’s easy to get caught up in the enthusiasm that everybody on the train observed as it pulled into the Mississippi stations and Mobile. It was as if nobody had seen a passenger train in years, and they truly had not. Saturday’s train was a one-shot special, but it was only one more day before there would be two trains to New Orleans and two trains to Mobile every day. Everyone on the route can now make a day trip to any other stop on the route, and Mississippians can go to either New Orleans or Mobile, or to another stop within their state.
This is all well and good, but it misses the big story when it comes to mobility.
Most Mississippians are motorists, and that probably goes for most people who live in Mobile, too. Of course, everyone who played any part in getting the route started hopes that motorists will decide to leave their vehicles at home and take the train. That sort of trip makes the most sense when visiting New Orleans, with its narrow historic streets, beautiful buildings, and plenty of transit to take visitors around the city, along with the folks who live there. The 1923-vintage streetcars that run on St. Charles Avenue every day are legendary, and other cars run on Canal Street and in other places, including directly to the train station.
For non-motorists, though, the situation is completely different. Until now, there was no public transportation of any kind that ran to and from Bay St. Louis or Pascagoula. There is limited bus service to Biloxi on Greyhound on an inconvenient schedule and requiring a local bus to get to Gulfport. There were a few daily Greyhound runs to and from Mobile, but the bus station is several miles from downtown, and local buses do not serve the bus station for all arrivals and departures.
The train now stops at convenient downtown locations in all cities and towns, including Mobile. In short, everybody now has a train that goes to five new destinations where non-motorists formerly either had no access at all (except by taking an extremely expensive ride on a conventional taxi or app-taxi) or very little access, mostly at inconvenient hours. For them, the new trains will be a game-changer.
With or without an automobile, people now have access to every city and town on the new route. It will also be easier for people Mobile to Bay St. Louis to visit New Orleans by taking the train and using transit to get around within the city. Transit fares in New Orleans are low, the people are interesting, and it’s easier to strike up conversations on the streetcars of the Crescent City than on any other transit (this writer has ridden essentially all the rail transit in the country and can attest to that). There are also same-day connections available to and from other Amtrak trains to or from Chicago and next-day connections to and from the train to or from New York. Taking the train toward or returning from Texas or California requires more planning because of the Sunset Limited’s tri-weekly schedule.
Still, for the first time in many years, the nation’s rail mobility map has expanded to five new localities. It might not be much, but it’s the first such improvement in decades, except for Brightline in Florida, which is in the private sector and added service to Orlando Airport. Maybe the enthusiasm that all of us on the train saw in Mississippi will spread, and maybe more new Amtrak routes will follow.
We don’t know but, if the ridership on the Mardi Gras Service over the next few years ensures that train’s success, regardless of political or economic considerations, kindles similar or greater enthusiasm for more routes, that could begin to bring American mobility into a new direction and a new era. Of course, that’s a lot to hope for, and there is a lot to be learned from this new transportation experiment upon which Amtrak and Southern leaders are now embarking. The fact remains that there is more mobility now than there was last week. To this writer, that is the big story we’re reporting. In the spirit of Mardi Gras, more mobility for non-motorists and motorists alike is truly something to celebrate.
