I rode Amtrak’s new Mardi Gras service from New Orleans to Alabama

“Oh man, Dad, look at this!” shouted the young girl behind me, as our train passed a billboard advertising a local injury attorney.

“Buddy,” her father said with a smile. “We’re still in New Orleans.”

The new train route replaces one that was disrupted by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

It had been less than 90 seconds since we’d rolled out of the station, but the girl wasn’t alone in her excitement. We were on Amtrak’s Mardi Gras Service, which launched last August after the route, which heads east from New Orleans, was shut down more than 20 years ago due to damage sustained from Hurricane Katrina.

I moved to New Orleans in 2009, four years after the storm. As I watched the region recover, I’d often hear from friends reminiscing about the days when they could shuttle between the Crescent City and Mississippi Gulf Coast towns like Biloxi and Bay St. Louis, all the way to Mobile, Ala., without getting in a car.

The twice-daily train service has blown away projections for ridership, according to Amtrak—but why? To better understand the buzz around the return of train service, in December I booked a series of tickets on the line, for each of the five legs of the 145-mile journey.

A cocktail hunt in Bay St. Louis

In no time, I was in unfamiliar territory: The sun rose over spoonbills and egrets standing in shallow water as a lone kayaker navigated fields of marsh grass.

Forty minutes later, we crossed the state line and arrived in Bay St. Louis, home to just over 10,000 people. Volunteers with the local tourism board waited on the platform, guiding passengers to the town’s shops, restaurants and hotels.

Bay St. Louis, Miss., has seen an uptick in visitors since the train’s launch.

In recent years, charming Bay St. Louis has become a hub for artists, who sell their wares at colorful shops and galleries like the French Potager and the Shops of Century Hall. Shop owners told me that business has been better than usual since the train returned.

While I didn’t have space in my bag for whimsical prints from the Alice Moseley Folk Art Museum, I was determined to find a Bushwacker, a frozen cocktail-milkshake hybrid beloved on the Gulf Coast.

A seafood spread at the Blind Tiger, a bar in Bay St. Louis.

At the Blind Tiger, one of a number of bars on stilts along the waterfront, I ordered one and asked a group at the bar who made the town’s best. A debate ensued that lasted until I left for my evening train—and possibly much longer.

A bit of decadence in Gulfport

I got off the train again at the next stop, Gulfport, Miss., a historic commercial hub anchored by the headquarters for Hancock Whitney Bank. At the tropical Siren Social Club, I splurged on a gin martini, an appetizer of garlicky Gulf shrimp and pastry-encrusted beef Wellington.

After my indulgent dinner, the wonderfully divey Kelly’s Sports Pub provided a more grounded experience. This time, I passed on the signature drink: a shot, followed by a glass of ice water to the face and a slap from the bartender.

Instead, I enjoyed a beer with the owner, Terry McCormack, who told me that since the train service launched, he and his friends have taken it to Mobile once a month for a bar crawl. “Our goal is to add one more new bar each time, before the train leaves the station,” he said. “But time is getting tight and we’re going to miss it one day.”

The coastal stretch from New Orleans to Mobile is united by a love for Mardi Gras season. Here, costumes are on display at the Coastal Mississippi Mardi Gras Museum in Biloxi.

Back in tourism country

The next morning, I took a boat tour—boating is a major attraction all along the Gulf Coast—and then rode the train to Biloxi, the Gulf Coast’s tourism capital, famous for its casinos, nightlife and restaurants. It being a little early for blackjack at the towering Beau Rivage, where I’d booked a room for the night, I instead crossed the causeway to nearby Ocean Springs.

I spent most of the day at the Walter Anderson Museum of Art, home to a wide-ranging collection of work by the New Orleans-born artist who lived in Ocean Springs for decades. A personal favorite: the immersive “Little Room,” a floor-to-ceiling, 360-degree painting meant to evoke the cycle of daylight and darkness on Horn Island, eight miles off shore.

Beau Rivage, one of the largest casino-hotels in Biloxi.

Looking for a kayak in Pascagoula

Three days into my trip, I started spotting trends along the Gulf Coast: restaurants featuring fresh shrimp, oysters and fish plucked from the region’s watery backyard; nature that I’d never appreciated from inside a car, and, among the passengers, a preponderance of family vacationers, girls’ weekends and birthday parties. Also ubiquitous? Golf carts.

An aerial view of Pascagoula, set on the river of the same name.

In Pascagoula, I finally took a cue from the locals and rented one of my own. I zipped past shipbuilding facilities and refineries, before cruising by grand historic homes watching over the Mississippi Sound.

But the real gem of Pascagoula is its namesake river. I was eager to get on a kayak, but learned that the state park no longer loaned them out. My inquiries led me to Robbie Steiner, a local entrepreneur in the process of starting a rental company. For now, he adhered to the honor system. He left me a kayak at the River Road Boat Club and asked that I Venmo him $30 once I was done.

A region, reconnected

The next day, as I strolled through Mobile, I felt more attuned to the through lines connecting the places I’d been on this trip. Ornate Creole-style ironwork decorated the facades of buildings just like they do in the French Quarter. Posters from the same brass bands I knew from home hung outside music venues. At the Mobile Carnival Museum, Mardi Gras costumes behind a glass case wouldn’t have been out of place on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans.