The ''Gopher'' and ''Badger'' were trains operated by the
Great Northern Railway and then
Burlington Northern Railroad
The Burlington Northern Railroad was a United States-based railroad company formed from a Mergers and acquisitions, merger of four major U.S. railroads. Burlington Northern operated between 1970 and 1996.
Its historical lineage begins in the e ...
until the start of
Amtrak between
Saint Paul, Minnesota and the
Twin Ports of
Superior, Wisconsin
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and
Duluth, Minnesota via
Cambridge and
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,
Cambridge, and
Sandstone, Minnesota
Sandstone is a town in Pine County, Minnesota, United States, along the Kettle River. The population was 2,849 at the 2010 census.
Interstate 35 and Minnesota State Highways 18 and 23 are three of the main routes in the community.
Banning S ...
Service was terminated with the establishment of
Amtrak in 1971. The trains were succeeded by Amtrak's ''
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
A galley is a type of ship that is propelled mainly by oars. The galley is characterized by its long, slender hull, shallow draft, and low freeboard (clearance between sea and gunwale). Virtually all types of galleys had sails that could be used ...
for train service by an attendant at one's seat. Each
consist was assigned a
baggage
Baggage or luggage consists of bags, cases, and containers which hold a traveler's personal articles while the traveler is in transit. A modern traveler can be expected to have packages containing clothing, toiletries, small possessions, trip ...
/
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 as parlor cars for rebuilding as coaches.
The entire consists were painted in Omaha Orange and Pullman Green
paint
Paint is any pigmented liquid, liquefiable, or solid mastic composition that, after application to a substrate in a thin layer, converts to a solid film. It is most commonly used to protect, color, or provide texture. Paint can be made in many ...
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-
B set of
EMD F7s and the other train set powered by an
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