Today the Amtrak Mardi Gras turns one year old, and its success has been like, well, a runaway train.
To paraphrase a slogan from a well-known bus company, the success mostly comes from leaving the driving to someone else.
"People don't like driving on I-10," said Knox Ross with the Southern Rail Commission. "That's what we get over and over again."
Ross said they thought maybe 70,000 would ride the train in its first year. Boy, were they wrong!
"We've over doubled the initial projection," said Ross, as the New Orleans-to-Mobile run, with stops in Bay St. Louis, Gulfport, Biloxi, and Pascagoula, is on the cusp of 150,000 passengers so far.
Ross says it shows that affordable rail travel will get riders.
"People want this," he said, and they want more of it: "Last week I had a dozen people come by and say 'when are we going to Baton Rouge,' or 'when are we going to take it past Mobile?'"
