The Southern Rail Commission is working to bring Amtrak passenger rail service to the Shreveport-Bossier area in the coming years.
Knox Ross with the Southern Rail Commission said they are in the preliminary stages of getting an Amtrak train to come through the area.
SporTran CEO Dinero Washington says the dominoes are still falling on getting Amtrak through Shreveport-Bossier in a process that he acknowledges is neither quick nor easy.
“What I will tell you is that at this point in time, the city of Shreveport is confident enough that we are moving forward with an agreement,” he told The Shreveport Bossier City Advocate.
It took 11 days of hearings before the STB (Surface Transportation Board) in 2022 for Amtrak, CSX (U.S. freight railroad operator), and Norfolk Southern (NS) to reach an agreement. Amtrak's long-stalled effort to restart its passenger service between Mobile, Alabama, and New Orleans, Louisiana, was finally bearing fruit. In August 2025, Amtrak finally launched its newest route, the Mardi Gras Service.
You’ve no doubt heard the saying that making predictions is hard, particularly about the future. So it was with Amtrak’s Mardi Gras Service, which is off to such a flying start that it has proven that naysayers — myself included — were flat out wrong.
The Mardi Gras Service is the culmination of a long fight to bring passenger trains back to the Gulf Coast after the Sunset Limited service east of New Orleans was suspended in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
When Amtrak’s Mardi Gras Service hit the rails in August 2025, restoring passenger rail service along the Mississippi Gulf Coast for the first time since Hurricane Katrina, everyone was excited, but no one knew what to expect. Now, seven months later, people are pleasantly surprised.
“It’s exceeded all expectations,” said Amtrak Senior Public Relations Manager Marc Magliari.
Amtrak officials are looking to expand travel across several southern states, and with new data centers coming to the area they have to find ways to help people get around.
An expansion of the passenger rail along the Interstate 20 corridor will be one of the big pieces to move workers to and from new data centers that are planned across the region, including one under construction in Richland Parish and others expected in Caddo Parish and Bossier Parish.
Mobile has seen 26,174 riders board the Amtrak Mardi Gras Service in just under seven months, and the city is outperforming New Orleans on a per‑capita basis among the two largest anchors of the coastal route.
Amtrak’s Mardi Gras Service may be exceeding early ridership projections, but a darker reality has emerged alongside the excitement: a rising number of tragic deaths at railroad crossings along the Gulf Coast.
Amtrak Mardi Gras Service concluded its inaugural quarter as one of the most successful service launches in the passenger rail operator's history.
According to the Southern Rail Commission (SRC), as of Jan. 31, nearly 70,500 passengers traveled on the Gulf Coast line since its inaugural run in August 2025, with ticket fares averaging $34 per person. Additionally, Amtrak's Customer Satisfaction Index survey shows 94.1% of passengers were extremely satisfied with their overall experience on the train, according to a press release from Visit Mobile.
We boarded the train at dawn. The stainless-steel cars glowed beneath the streetlamps of downtown Mobile, Alabama, ready for the engine’s pull. Inside our coach car, we hoisted our bags into the overhead storage and settled into two navy-blue leather seats. I peered out our window, where a line of passengers still waited to show the conductor their tickets. A young couple in shorts and sandals. A group of women wearing matching pink family-reunion T-shirts. A father and his elementary-age son, who wore glasses and a flat-billed hat and held his dad’s hand.