WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Roger Wicker, R-Miss., was featured in a Sun Herald article about the upcoming opening of Amtrak’s Mardi Gras Service. Senator Wicker, along with community leaders and other stakeholders, will take part in the inaugural ride this Saturday, August 16^th, before commercial service opens on Monday, August 18^th.

 

Excerpts from the piece:

 

“Dozens of people working since before Katrina at the national, state and local levels are responsible for the start of the Mardi Gras Line.

 

“Four are the driving force, who worked together for years, who will be on Saturday’s first Mardi Gras train.

 

“Wicker and Kell, along with Knox Ross, the current chairman of the SRC, and John Robert Smith, chairman of Transportation for America, never gave up on the dream of restoring Amtrak to the Gulf Coast.”

 

“‘The good thing about Sen. Wicker is he listens,’ said Smith, who served five years on the Amtrak board of directors, half of that time as chairman. Once convinced, Wicker is ‘relentless,’ he said, ‘and I like working with someone like that.’”

 

Below is the full article:

 

Bands played and crowds cheered as the first Amtrak train in more than a decade rolled up to stations in South Mississippi.

 

That was 2016 and U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker recalls, “It was a massive crowd at every stop.” Kids and 80-year-old couples alike were there to cheer the inspection train and show their support for Amtrak. “I think it was the realization that this is the place where passenger rail can really work,” he said.

 

It seemed like the return of passenger trains was just a few years away. Now nine years later, the welcome finally will be replayed Saturday, Aug. 16, when The Mardi Gras Line makes its inaugural run with invited guests on board along with those who fought for this rail service for years.

 

Celebrations complete with Mardi Gras beads and purple, green and gold apparel are planned as the train leaves New Orleans and makes short stops Saturday morning in Bay St. Louis (estimated arrival at 9:30 a.m.), Gulfport (10:10), Biloxi (10:50) and Pascagoula (11:40) on the way to Mobile.

 

Ocean Springs also has a celebration ready as the train rolls by. Although it’s not a stop, Ocean Springs is billing itself as a must-see destination for passengers who can get off in Biloxi and take a quick transfer across the bridge to Ocean Springs’ walkable downtown and the city’s festivals, shopping and dining. Starting Monday, Aug. 18, football fans, foodies, students, professionals, history buffs, gamblers, beach lovers and travelers heading to a cruise ship or a long-distance train will journey together on the trains.

 

Making it happen

 

The trains and the expected economic impact almost didn’t happen. Many times over the years the challenges seemed insurmountable.

 

Hurricane Katrina in 2005 severely damaged rail infrastructure along the Gulf Coast. While CSX rebuilt its freight line between Mobile and New Orleans in four months, Amtrak passenger service from New Orleans to Jacksonville, Florida, hasn’t returned.

 

While they worked through funding issues, sharing the tracks with freight trains, co-existing with the port, building new boarding platforms and the many other complications that held up the trains, the advocates finally persevered. They were inspired by their own memories of train travels and thoughts of the kids, parents and grandparents who will share the experience of riding the trains.

 

“There were surely a lot of people who were determined not to get it done,” said Wicker, R-MS, who served as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee that oversees Amtrak. “We absolutely had to climb some hills and hurdle a bunch of obstacles.”

 

It’s time

 

“This in the first new rail line for Amtrak in decades,” Wicker said, and ticket sales are brisk.

 

“Right now it’s almost sold out through the end of August,” said Kay Kell, a member of the executive team of Southern Rail Commission, who worked with Wicker and others to make this line along the Gulf Coast reality.

 

Mississippi, Louisiana and Mobile, Alabama pledged a combined $28 million and the federal government provided a $178 million Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements Program grant for track and infrastructure improvements plus other funding to launch the service and fund operational costs for the first three years.

 

Wicker said it is incumbent on Amtrak to make it work and for people to use the service.

 

When Amtrak trains ran before Hurricane Katrina 20 years ago, “Trains didn’t run on time,” Wicker said.

 

“The Sunset Limited was so late because it came from California,” Kell said, and had plenty of time to get behind schedule. Service to South Mississippi was then just three times a week.

 

For this new service, two trains in each direction will leave Mobile and New Orleans every morning and night, with four stops each way in Mississippi at Bay St. Louis, Gulfport, Biloxi and Pascagoula on the 145-mile route. “We insisted on two a day and a schedule that people could depend on,” Wicker said.

 

Trains will leave New Orleans at 7:35 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. Trains will head west out of Mobile at 6:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.

 

“They have to be on time and provide the quality of service that we get on the Northeast rails,” said Wicker, who uses Amtrak. If a member of Congress has business in Philadelphia or New York, “they jump on Amtrak because it’s efficient and it’s easy and it’s clean,” he said. “The bathrooms are impeccable, and they know they can depend on on-time service.”

 

A generation skipped

 

The Sunset Limited started service in South Mississippi in 1993. The Gulf Coast Limited first operated in 1984–1985, when it transported passengers from South Mississippi to the New Orleans Worlds Fair. It ran again in 1996–1997 and was very successful, while funds lasted, Kell said.

 

She was chairman of the Southern Rail Commission and signed the contract for service to return in 1996. She served five separate times as chairman and remained on with the SRC because of her experience and knowledge. “I’ve been working with the executive team because I am the only one that’s ever run a train,” she said.

 

Back in 1996, many of the local kids hadn’t experienced a train ride. Now 29 years later, there are parents who have never ridden the train, she said. “They grew up waiting.”

 

The dynamic 4 & their first trip

 

Dozens of people working since before Katrina at the national, state and local levels are responsible for the start of the Mardi Gras Line.

 

Four are the driving force, who worked together for years, who will be on Saturday’s first Mardi Gras train.

 

Wicker and Kell, along with Knox Ross, the current chairman of the SRC, and John Robert Smith, chairman of Transportation for America, never gave up on the dream of restoring Amtrak to the Gulf Coast.

 

Each grew up riding the trains. Wicker’s first excursion was as a Cub Scout, when he rode from Tupelo to Amory and back. The other three took their first trains to visit family, riding alone as a young child or with their grandmother, a shoebox packed with lunch to eat on the way.

 

Those distinct memories and their tenacity kept them going.

 

When you think about all of the entities they had to work with, Kell said, the federal government, three states, local government officials, the freight railroads that own the tracks, the Mobile Port and many other agencies, it was more work and took much longer than they expected.

 

“There were many, many times when we could simply have thrown up our hands,” Wicker said.

 

Smith said the passage of the FAST Act in 2015, which included passenger rail for the first time, and the creation of the Gulf Coast Working Group, which determined at the federal level that service should start with service from New Orleans to Mobile, were instrumental at the federal level.

 

“The good thing about Sen. Wicker is he listens,” said Smith, who served five years on the Amtrak board of directors, half of that time as chairman. Once convinced, Wicker is “relentless,” he said, “and I like working with someone like that.”

 

They persisted due to community support and political backing, Ross said. Kell recruited him for the SRC. Smith and his organization “were able to pull together all the different legislation that we needed to make this the reality,” he said. When they hit an obstacle and thought the quest was over, Wicker made a call and got things back on track, Ross said.

 

“It just took all of us continuing to meet and continuing not to hear the word ‘no,’” Ross said. What they took from meetings was: “Well, they didn’t say no, so we’re gonna keep going.”

 

The economic boom

 

The return of Amtrak coincides with the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

 

Wicker is from north Mississippi. Ross was mayor of Pelahatchie and Smith served as mayor of Meridian, all well inland from the Gulf Coast and Katrina’s storm surge. Yet they recognize the money that was spent and the resurgence that has occurred in South Mississippi since then.

 

“It is just a metamorphosis. And I just think it’s a place that people will love to come to,” Ross said. It’s authentic and not pre-packaged, he said, and people will want to see how the disaster money was used and the work that’s been done.

 

Like a shopping center, the Mardi Gras line has anchors of New Orleans with Saints’ football and its many attractions and Mobile, which has seen a resurgence of its own, with new hotels, restaurants and activities in the downtown. In between are the casinos, the small towns, the white sand beaches and hospitality of South Mississippi’s restaurants, lodging and attractions.

 

The trains also will let people commute to work or school and get their work done on the journey, Wicker said.

 

He thinks the train service will help the economy and create jobs, Wicker said, give graduates the opportunity to work at home instead of moving away, and provide a big quality of life boost to the area devastated by a natural disaster.

 

Good for the Coast and the country

 

The biggest challenge now for the Mardi Gras Line is for people to use it.

 

“We basically have three years of funding,” Wicker said, and that amount of time to prove the service is useful.

 

It doesn’t just affect Mobile to New Orleans. When Amtrak decided to cut passenger rail service south of Atlanta years ago, Smith, as mayor of Meridian, organized officials from New Orleans to Atlanta. They went to Capitol Hill and the service was restored. “Having done that, I realized it couldn’t be solved just for Meridian,” he said.

 

Likewise, restoring Amtrak to the Gulf Coast “couldn’t be a one off just for the Gulf. It had to be part of a larger strategy to expand the passenger rail,” Smith said.

 

If the Mardi Gras Line is successful, Amtrak service could eventually return across Florida to Jacksonville and even Orlando, Smith said. But that’s a long distance and many challenges ahead.

 

“Legislation was created at the federal level stemming from the desire for passenger rail along the Gulf and an understanding that you can’t solve something like that just for Mississippi,” he said. “You’ve got to create a framework that anyone in the nation can do.”