The Polar Express train ride is chugging back into New Orleans for the 2026 holiday season, with tickets going on sale Tuesday after the beloved seasonal attraction was scrapped last year because of a scheduling clash with a new Amtrak route. The production will run December 11 through December 31 out of the New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal, offering up to five rides a day between noon and 9 p.m., each lasting about an hour.
The 2025 cancellation was attributed to conflicts with Amtrak's new Mardi Gras Service to Mobile, according to NOLA.com. Amtrak launched that twice-daily route between New Orleans and Mobile on August 18, 2025, restoring Gulf Coast passenger rail for the first time in 20 years since Hurricane Katrina suspended the line, according to WWNO. The timing meant the holiday train and the new intercity service were both vying for track windows at the same city-owned terminal.
Amtrak's Surprise Ridership Boom Squeezed Track Time
That squeeze wasn't a small one. In its first year of operation through this August, the Mardi Gras Service carried roughly 150,000 passengers between New Orleans and Mobile, far surpassing initial planning projections of just 38,000 annual riders, per a report from Deep Arrival. Because the new route so badly outperformed expectations, track space and scheduling windows at Union Passenger Terminal stayed tightly constrained through the following months, the outlet's report notes. The terminal itself served 188,071 Amtrak passengers systemwide during fiscal year 2025 as the hub for routes including the City of New Orleans, Crescent, and Sunset Limited, according to Wikipedia.
For 2026, Rail Events Inc. and Rail Events Productions worked out the operational hurdles needed to bring the show back. The Durango, Colorado-based company has greeted over 400,000 guests in New Orleans over the past decade, running the production off and on for 10 years since its local debut in 2016. Company representative Jarrette Ireland said Rail Events is very excited about welcoming everyone back in New Orleans.
A New Sensory-Friendly Option Joins the Lineup
New for this year is a sensory-friendly ride scheduled for 10 a.m. on December 18, designed to be accessible to people with disabilities, including people on the autism spectrum. That version modifies and slows cast interactions, uses softer audio levels and sound effects, and limits flashing lights. All trains, sensory-friendly or otherwise, will offer closed-captioning.
The 2026 production will not include an outdoor North Pole set that had appeared in past years, and there are no advanced group ticket sales this time around. Riders will still get the core experience: a real locomotive, a live-action cast reenacting scenes from the 2004 Polar Express movie, yuletide carols, and readings from Chris Van Allsburg's 1985 children's book. Dancing chefs will serve hot chocolate and shortbread, Santa will greet passengers aboard the train and hand out silver sleigh bells, and the ride follows a short route toward Mid-City and back before returning to the terminal.
Ticket Prices and Rules for Families
Adult ticket prices start at $78, with premium adult tickets running $99 for high-demand time slots. Child tickets for ages 2 through 11 start at $70, with premium child pricing at $90. Tickets are nonrefundable, and the ride does not accommodate late arrivals, so families are encouraged to wear pajamas and plan to arrive early. Every ticket includes entertainment, hot chocolate, cookies, and a keepsake sleigh bell.
A Rocky Recent History for the New Orleans Run
This isn't the first time weather or circumstance has derailed the New Orleans production. The ride was canceled from 2020 through 2023 due to the pandemic, staffing shortages, and Hurricane Ida, then ran again in 2024 before last year's Amtrak-related pause. The Polar Express is now returning to South Louisiana for the first time since 2024.
Van Allsburg's original book, first published in 1985, won the 1986 Caldecott Medal and has sold more than 6.5 million copies worldwide, according to Britannica. Rail Events Inc. spent two years negotiating with Warner Bros. Consumer Products before securing licensing rights in 2005 to adapt the story into a live theatrical train ride, a deal chronicled by The Denver Post. The company now licenses Polar Express- and Peanuts-themed rides across the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom, and other Southeast Polar Express runs are listed in Galveston, Texas; Miami; and North Carolina.
New Orleans has its own separate steam-train holiday history that predates the current production. Santa's North Pole Steam Train made its inaugural holiday run in the city on December 16, 2017, operated by the Louisiana Steam Train Association using the Southern Pacific steam locomotive No. 745, taking holiday revelers from the Audubon Zoo to Blaine Kern's Mardi Gras World. That locomotive, built in 1921 at the Algiers Shops, is the last surviving steam engine constructed in Louisiana and the state's only operating steam engine, per Wikipedia. The volunteer-run Louisiana Steam Train Association is now relocating SP 745 from Jefferson Parish to the historic Timbermill Museum in Garyville, with completion targeted for 2026.
The New Orleans revival echoes a broader pattern seen in other cities where Rail Events productions have run into rail-infrastructure snags. Chicago's ride was scrapped for a second straight year amid Union Station construction, while the Polar Express at the North Carolina Transportation Museum in Spencer carried nearly 93,000 riders in 2025 and drove a record $31.1 million economic impact for the Charlotte region, according to Hoodline's prior reporting. The New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal itself dates to 1954, when it opened as a city-owned, air-conditioned facility built for $2.2 million to consolidate five scattered passenger depots, per Great American Stations.
