How a trip on the new Amtrak train offers a new perspective of America’s Deep South

The lively Dauphin Street in Mobile, one of the stops on the all-new Amtrak train service - (PA)

Dozens of birds fly over the still bayou as the train rushes past, leaving nothing but blue skies over the marshland. In no time this serene scene is replaced by bustling cityscape as I arrive in New Orleans.

It’s the first time since Hurricane Katrina devastated the region 20 years ago that a passenger train is running along the Gulf Coast from Mobile, Alabama, to New Orleans in Louisiana.