Amtrak will begin passenger rail service between New Orleans and Mobile, Ala., on Aug. 18, the railway operator announced on Tuesday, connecting the cities by train for the first time since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the region two decades ago.

The route, called the Mardi Gras Service, will offer two daily departures from each end with four intermediate stops along the Gulf Coast in Bay St. Louis, Gulfport, Biloxi and Pascagoula, Miss. Tickets, which went on sale Tuesday, start at $15 each way for an adult riding end-to-end in coach.

Amtrak estimates that the route, which takes about four hours to travel each way, will serve approximately 68,000 passengers per year.

The Mardi Gras Service will allow passengers traveling from Alabama and Mississippi to connect to Amtrak’s long-haul network via New Orleans, where routes like the City of New Orleans, the Sunset Limited and the Crescent serve destinations as distant as Chicago, Los Angeles and New York.

Amtrak suspended service along the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, which killed more than 1,800 people and devastated the region’s infrastructure in late August 2005. Before the storm, the Sunset Limited line traveled all the way from Los Angeles to Orlando, Fla. Since 2005, it has terminated in New Orleans.

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