As the diesel engine rumbles, I sink into my seat and sip my hot milky coffee. It’s dark outside the window, the sun just starting to rise between glassy buildings.

Inside the carriage, there’s a feeling of excitement as passengers bundle aboard, flinging bags onto racks and settling in.

Minutes later, the horn sounds and the shiny red and blue train slides out of the station along new tracks. Everyone in the carriage lets out a cheer.

It’s no surprise spirits are so high on this 6.30am service from the cosmopolitan waterfront city of Mobile, Alabama.

Twenty years ago, Hurricane Katrina wiped out the Gulf Coast, and with it, Amtrak’s passenger railway along this stretch of shoreline.

Reconstruction was held up by bureaucratic and political disputes and funding issues, but in August th

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