By Tom Hintgen

Otter Tail County Correspondent

Many county residents remember the Galloping Goose that was a short train which went east and west through Otter Tail County during the 1950s and 1960s. Other short trains in the Upper Midwest also were known by the name Galloping Goose.

The train traveled from Oakes, North Dakota, to Wahpeton-Breckenridge, through Fergus Falls to Staples, with other stops along the way. A person could board the train in Underwood, travel to towns such as Battle Lake and Henning to spend the night with a relative, and return home by train the next day.

Their accounts of this short journey, during the 1950s and 1960s, came under the heading “Personal and Social News” in the Fergus Falls Daily Journal. 

Galloping Goose short trains also carried mail, freight and farm goods along routes in the Upper Midwest.

Today the old Northern Pacific tracks in Otter Tail County are pretty much gone. One exception is railway tracks from Fergus Falls westward to Foxhome, east of Breckenridge, for trains to arrive at grain elevators.

Kurt Maethner is a collector of railroad memorabilia and is one of the owners of Galloping Goose Rentals in Battle Lake and Glendalough State Park.

The name Galloping Goose Rentals “bikes and fun to go” comes in part from the N.P. railcar that passed through Battle Lake nearly every day on its journey from Staples to Oakes.

  “We are starting to lose the history of those who rode that car and rail,” says Maethner. “My hope is to catalog the memoirs and stories from the Galloping Goose passengers and the community members who remember this rail car from the Staples to Oakes route, with a published book/booklet.”

You can contact Maethner at Kurt@kammaethner.com

Other memories of Galloping Goose

The late Bob Lind worked at the Fargo Forum, starting in 1969, after running a weekly newspaper for several years in North Dakota. In retirement he talked about Galloping Goose stories in his “Neighbors” column in 2010.

“If someone formed a Galloping Goose fan club, it would have many members, based on the mail ‘Neighbors’ receives about the old branch line trains,” wrote Lind.

He heard from Kenneth Skjegstad of Moorhead, a native of Henning.

“My hometown of Henning was developed along the Northern Pacific Railroad after the line was built in 1881,” said Skjegstad who later died in 2022. 

“Our home was across the street from the rail line. The comings and goings of the Goose and the local freight trains were a familiar part of life as we were growing up.”

Coming from Staples, the Galloping Goose arrived in Henning early in the morning, 7 a.m. or so, and returned from the west around 5 or 5:30 p.m. It was a convenient schedule for people in Henning.

“Riding the Galloping Goose allowed for a full day in Fergus Falls for business, shopping, visiting or attending to some legal matter at the county courthouse,” Skjegstad said.

“The train also carried the mail. In late afternoons, Douglas Avenue, our main street in Henning, was busy with people waiting to pick up their mail and their copy of the day’s issue of the Fergus Falls Daily Journal after it was delivered from the depot and distributed into mail boxes.”

Skjegstad made this round trip to Fergus Falls and back to Henning one day in 1948. He said it was always a pleasant and somewhat scenic ride passing farms, lakes, woods and small towns.

The Galloping Goose service on this line was discontinued in the 1960s. The N.P. abandoned the route in the 1970s.