The ''Gopher'' and ''Badger'' were trains operated by the Great Northern Railway and then Burlington Northern Railroad until the start of

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada ...

between

Saint Paul, Minnesota Saint Paul (abbreviated St. Paul) is the capital of the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Ramsey County. Situated on high bluffs overlooking a bend in the Mississippi River, Saint Paul is a regional business hub and the center ...

and the

Twin Ports The Duluth MN-WI Metropolitan Area, commonly called the Twin Ports, is a small metropolitan area centered around the cities of Duluth, Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin. The Twin Ports are located at the western part of Lake Superior (the weste ...

of Superior, Wisconsin and

Duluth, Minnesota , settlement_type = City , nicknames = Twin Ports (with Superior), Zenith City , motto = , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top: urban Duluth skyline; Minnesota ...

via

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

and

Sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...

. The Great Northern introduced the services with two six-car streamlined

trainset In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and transport people or freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by locomotives (often know ...

s 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 Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

, 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

in 1971. The trains were succeeded by Amtrak's ''

Arrowhead An arrowhead or point is the usually sharpened and hardened tip of an arrow, which contributes a majority of the projectile mass and is responsible for impacting and penetrating a target, as well as to fulfill some special purposes such as sign ...

'' in 1975. The ''Badger'' and ''Gopher'' route is nearly the same route as the proposed ''

Northern Lights Express The ''Northern Lights Express'' (''NLX'') is a planned higher-speed rail service that would run between Minneapolis and Duluth primarily in the U.S. state of Minnesota. A portion of the proposed line would run through neighboring Wisconsin to ser ...

'', except the ''NLX'' is not currently planned to serve Saint Paul. The trains utilized six of the pre-

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

Empire Builder The ''Empire Builder'' is an Amtrak long-distance passenger train that operates daily between Chicago and either Seattle or Portland via two sections west of Spokane. Introduced in 1929, it was the flagship passenger train of the Great Northe ...

'' 58-seat luxury coaches, with four of these remaining as-built, and two converted to 44-seat coaches with galley for train service by an attendant at one's seat. Each

consist In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and transport people or freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by locomotives (often know ...

was assigned a baggage/

railway post office In Canada and the United States, a railway post office, commonly abbreviated as RPO, was a railroad car that was normally operated in passenger service as a means to sort mail en route, in order to speed delivery. The RPO was staffed by highly tr ...

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 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 F7 The EMD F7 is a model of diesel-electric locomotive produced between February 1949 and December 1953 by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors (EMD) and General Motors Diesel (GMD). Although originally promoted by EMD as a freight-h ...

s 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 The Minnesota Transportation Museum (MTM, reporting mark MNTX) is a transportation museum in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. MTM operates several heritage transportation sites in Minnesota and one in Wisconsin. The museum is actively invol ...

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