“Once you get to New Orleans, you can catch the Crescent up to the Northeast. You can catch the city of New Orleans up to Chicago or the Sunset Limited out to California. It really now connects Mobile to anywhere in the country and to the entire Amtrak network. And that’s going to be wonderful for people,” Daniel Day said.

The line won't carry the masses of commuters that use Amtrak's popular trains between Boston, New York and Washington D.C., each day: The inaugural ride carried 29 travelers on two regular passenger train cars and third car split between a cafe and business class.