A better way to coast

Amtrak’s new Mardi Gras service does something quietly radical: It makes traveling the Gulf Coast feel easy.

The train runs between New Orleans and Mobile, with whistle stops in Mississippi towns. That means a weekend trip no longer has to begin with a negotiation with I-10, a search for parking and the low-grade despair of a highway exit lined with brake lights.

The details: 

• Start at Union Passenger Terminal in New Orleans. 
• Reserve parking through SpotHero. It runs about $24 a day.
• Tickets are dynamically priced. A one-way coach seat from New Orleans to Mobile is $30 to $50. 
• Don’t upgrade to business class. Coach is comfortable enough, with spacious seats made for napping.

Then comes one of rail travel’s underrated luxuries: no TSA. No X-ray body scans. No plastic bins. Go wild: bring more than 2 ounces of water. Amtrak staff treat passengers like long-lost cousins, helping with bags and cracking jokes along the way.

You will also notice something else: people seem happy to be there. Children on first train rides. Couples. Retirees. Day-trippers. A mix of travelers who are not in much of a hurry and do not mind that. 

The café car helps. It serves a surprisingly broad range of food, including Louisiana standbys such as a muffuletta. Tito’s, according to the café car host, is the most popular purchase, often mixed into juice by passengers who have decided the train is the start of vacation. By Superior Grill standards, that counts as a health drink.

And the ride itself is the point. The scenery shifts in a way that reminds you how strange and varied this region is. You move past industrial edges and behind New Orleans cemeteries, over Gulf waters, through pine forests and small Mississippi towns.

Another virtue of the route: the stations are close to where you actually want to be. In Biloxi, Beau Rivage is about 150 yards from the station. In Mobile, the station is really just a platform, but it lands you across the street from downtown and two Renaissance hotels.

A few suggestions for the trip: In Biloxi, eat the buffet at Beau Rivage. At $30 f0r lunch, it is the sort of high-end smorgasbord every adult should visit once in a while. In Mobile, make time for Noble South, which earned a Michelin recommendation for reasons that become obvious once the food arrives. Then wander downtown, where the vintage shops offer the usual mix of treasures, oddities and shirts that should probably stay in Mobile.

The bottom line: The Mardi Gras train is not merely transportation. It is a small vacation with conductors. It opens up the coast in a way that feels civilized, affordable and, in the best sense, old-fashioned.