After two decades of negotiations and rebuilding, passenger trains reconnect Gulf Coast cities, but financial hurdles remain.

John Hilbert stood by the railroad tracks at the Bay St. Louis station on a sweltering Gulf Coast morning, waiting.

The first train on Amtrak’s Mardi Gras Service pulled into the Port City about a half-hour past its 11:18 a.m. arrival time on Monday. Of course, to a city at has been waiting for 20 years for ...