Afternoon Zephyr from each terminal. The Hiawatha added a second set of trains in 1939, and the Morning Hiawatha and Afternoon Hiawatha each provided daily service from Minneapolis-St. Paul and Chicago. The Morning Hiawatha may have held the record as the world's fastest steam train on two or more measures: The run from Sparta to Portage, Wisconsin was scheduled for 58 minutes—an average of . Speeds up to and above were achieved on a daily basis, and the powerful Milwaukee Road class F7 engines (designed for a "reserve speed" of ) likely ran more miles at or above than any other steam locomotives in history. Burlington's diesel Zephyrs were also very fast, and they had to be—the Zephyr route was about longer than the competition. In southwestern Wisconsin, a stretch of track between stations required an average speed of . Eventually, the Hiawathas, Zephyrs, and the 400 ran 6¼-hour service between St. Paul and Chicago, and for a time the Morning Zephyr from Chicago reached St. Paul in six hours flat. In the 1950s, the federal government began imposing stricter rules for high-speed operation, and expensive advanced signaling was installed along the routes to the Twin Cities, though trains generally traveled a maximum of . Unable to keep up with an increasing automobile speeds on an improving road network and other factors that kept passengers away from trains, train ridership declined and the five daily fast trains became unprofitable. Other notable trains to serve the depot Twin Star Rocket (Rock Island Railroad: Minneapolis/St. Paul - Houston) Gopher and Badger (Great Northern Railway: Minneapolis/St. Paul - Duluth/Superior) North Coast Limited (Northern Pacific Railway and Chicago, Burlington & Quincy: Chicago - Seattle) Western Star (Great Northern Railway: Chicago - Seattle and Portland) End of service The Twin Cities 400 was the first victim, ending service on July 23, 1963. It was announced that when Amtrak formally took over most passenger service on May 1, 1971, it would consolidate its Twin Cities service in Minneapolis at the Minneapolis Great Northern Depot. Accordingly, the Burlington (later Burlington Northern) Zephyrs ended service on April 30, 1971, the same day the depot closed. The Afternoon Zephyr was the last train to serve the depot when it departed that evening bound for Minneapolis. At this time, this train was normally combined with the Empire Builder and North Coast Limited from Chicago to St. Paul, except on Fridays