The ''Gopher'' and ''Badger'' were trains operated by the Great Northern Railway (U.S.), Great Northern Railway and then Burlington Northern Railroad until the start of Amtrak between Saint Paul, Minnesota and the Twin Ports of Superior, Wisconsin and Duluth, Minnesota via Cambridge, Minnesota, Cambridge and Sandstone, Minnesota, Sandstone.
The Great Northern introduced the services with two six-car streamlined trainsets on April 26, 1952. The two consists operated as the ''Badger'' for the morning trains #19 and #20, which operated in both directions as all-stop locals in 3 hours 58 minutes over the route. The late afternoon/early evening trains #23 and #24 operated as the ''Gopher'', over the same route, but as limited-stop express trains in 3 hours 30 minutes. In addition to Saint Paul and the Twin Ports, the ''Gopher'' stopped in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Minneapolis, Cambridge, Minnesota, Cambridge, and Sandstone, Minnesota Service was terminated with the establishment of Amtrak in 1971. The trains were succeeded by Amtrak's ''Arrowhead (train), Arrowhead'' in 1975.
The ''Badger'' and ''Gopher'' route is nearly the same route as the proposed ''Northern Lights Express'', except the ''NLX'' is not currently planned to serve Saint Paul.
The trains utilized six of the pre-World War II ''Empire Builder'' 58-seat luxury coaches, with four of these remaining as-built, and two converted to 44-seat coaches with galley (kitchen), galley for train service by an attendant at one's seat. Each consist was assigned a Passenger_car_(rail)#Baggage_car, baggage/railway post office car with a RPO section; initially, one consist operated with a heavyweight, the other a lightweight. Each consist also carried a streamlined baggage express car built by the Great Northern Railway themselves; this car only operated in each day's ''Gopher'' schedule. Each consist then carried one of the 44-seat galley coaches and two of the 58-seat luxury coaches. The last car in each consist was a café parlor observation rebuilt by GN shops from heavyweight coaches the railroad had purchased at the beginning of the war from Pullman Company, Pullman as parlor cars for rebuilding as coaches.
The entire consists were painted in Omaha Orange and Pullman Green paint with the gold Scotch-lite lettering and separation stripes paint scheme most commonly referred to as "Empire Builder". Even as there were variations in the consists regarding the baggage/railway post office cars, the power was even more interesting with one set powered by an A unit, A-B unit, B set of EMD F7s and the other train set powered by an EMD E7, EMD E7A.
The #1084 ''Twin Ports'' parlor observation car survives today, although the tail end has been modified. It has been owned by the Minnesota Transportation Museum since 1979.
References
{{GN named trains
Passenger trains of the Great Northern Railway (U.S.)
Named passenger trains of the United States
Railway services introduced in 1952