Amtrak relaunched train service between New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama, Aug. 18, a route that hasn’t seen passenger rail since Hurricane Katrina struck a large portion of the line along the Gulf Coast in 2005. The through train from Los Angeles to Florida, which ran before the storm, remains a distant memory, however.

As Katrina approached New Orleans, Amtrak stopped inbound trains and moved its rolling stock out of harm’s way. But stormwater flooded the New Orleans Amtrak station, and freight railroads that carried Amtrak’s trains suffered storm damage in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast.  Katrina washed away nearly 5 miles of a Norfolk Southern bridge across Lake Pontchartrain and damaged or destroyed some 110 miles of CSX track and its Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, railroad bridge. As a result, Amtrak’s last remaining transcontinental train, the Sunset Limited from LA to Florida, went only as far east as New Orleans when service restarted after the storm.

Amtrak relaunched train service between New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama, Aug. 18, a route that hasn’t seen passenger rail since Hurricane Katrina struck a large portion of the line along the Gulf Coast in 2005. The through train from Los Angeles to Florida, which ran before the storm, remains a distant memory, however.

As Katrina approached New Orleans, Amtrak stopped inbound trains and moved its rolling stock out of harm’s way. But stormwater flooded the New Orleans Amtrak station, and freight railroads that carried Amtrak’s trains suffered storm damage in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast.  Katrina washed away nearly 5 miles of a Norfolk Southern bridge across Lake Pontchartrain and damaged or destroyed some 110 miles of CSX track and its Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, railroad bridge. As a result, Amtrak’s last remaining transcontinental train, the Sunset Limited from LA to Florida, went only as far east as New Orleans when service restarted after the storm.

Read the full article about restoring Amtrak service by Dan Zukowski at Smart Cities Dive.