“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.

"We can't stop here," Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser said, encouraging the crowd to fight for links between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Shreveport and other cities.