LA: Amtrak passenger service from New Orleans to Mobile will finally return in 2025. Here's when.

Nearly three decades ago, passenger trains traveled across the Mississippi Gulf Coast, from New Orleans to Mobile, then disappeared. But it's finally making a comeback this summer.

Amtrak passenger service between the two cities will start in June 2025, though the exact day is unknown at this time, said Kay Kell, the Mississippi commissioner of Southern Rail Commission. The station in Mobile remains under construction.

Every morning two trains will depart, one in New Orleans and another in Mobile. Between their journeys in opposite directions, there will be four stops in Mississippi: Bay St. Louis, Gulfport, Biloxi and Pascagoula. By the late afternoon or evening, the trains will travel back to its city's depot. Amtrak and the Southern Rail Commission are still deciding the price per ticket, Kell said.

Gulf Coast Limited, a passenger train service operated by Amtrak and no longer in service, was the last to run daily between New Orleans and Mobile in 1996, Kell said. The service was offered three days a week, but only lasted for nine months due to troubles with state funding and only one train running per day.

It didn't boost local economies as Gulf Coast cities and Amtrak had hoped for. Kell expects the up-and-coming passenger service to have a different outcome because it makes four stops a day.

"That makes a huge difference," she said.

In the meantime, each stop on the route is anticipating Amtrak's return. New businesses have opened, while longtime ones have tidied up. Southern Rail Commission is meeting with every city to see where they can help.

"We want to look at it from when the train stops. What do people see?" Kell asked. "How can they get where they want to go?"

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