Hogwarts Express

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The Hogwarts Express, as seen in the film adaptation of the first book.

The Hogwarts Express is a fictional magical train in the Harry Potter series, which carries students between London and Hogwarts. The train starts from King's Cross railway station platform 9¾, which is invisible to Muggle eyes and is reached by walking through the barrier between platforms 9 and 10. Prefects of the school ride in a separate carriage near the front of the train. The compartments on the train appear to be lettered; in book 6, for example, the Slug Club meet in compartment C, which is probably near the back of the train. Upon disembarking from the train at Hogsmeade Station, first years undergo the traditional boat journey across the lake with the Keeper of Keys and Grounds to Hogwarts; all other students are carried to the main entrance of the castle in coaches drawn by magical creatures called thestrals (which most students cannot see as thestrals can only be seen by those who have witnessed death).

In Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Harry meets his two best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, on his first ride on the Hogwarts Express. In the books, he has been on the train eleven times: twice each in the first, third, fourth, and fifth books, and once each in the second (in which he and Ron arrive instead in a flying car) and the sixth (which ends before Harry leaves Hogwarts) and seventh (in which Harry goes there after he temporarily dies). After each of his first six school years, Harry is met by his uncle and aunt after getting off the train; even though they dislike him, they have never failed to pick him up.

1 Platform Nine and Three Quarters
2 Portrayal in film adaptations
3 Vandalism
4 Models
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Platform Nine and Three Quarters

Platform 9¾ at King's Cross Station

J.K. Rowling discovered after the books were published that she had confused the layout of King's Cross with that of Euston station, and that platforms 9 and 10 at King's Cross were not the ones she had meant for her magical platform to be placed between. There is no platform between tracks 9 and 10 at King's Cross. To solve this, the film makers re-numbered platforms 4 and 5 for the duration of filming. In reality, at both King's Cross and Euston, platforms 9 and 10 are separated by train tracks.

Perhaps coincidentally, a local legend claims that Queen Boudica fought her last battle near the site of King's Cross Station, and her body is said to be buried somewhere between platforms nine and ten.^[1]

Today, King's Cross Station still has no Platform 9¾, but it does have a ‘Platform 9a’ and a ‘Platform 9b’. The secondary building containing platforms 9 and 10 has been decorated with a ‘Platform 9¾’ sign, complete with a luggage trolley ‘stuck’ halfway through the wall as tribute to the book.

[edit] Portrayal in film adaptations

Great Western Railway "Hall Class" locomotive, no. 5972 Olton Hall.

The steam engine used in the film adaptations is the Great Western Railway Hall Class locomotive 5972 Olton Hall, and is depicted pulling a train of four carriages. Scenes have been filmed in King's Cross railway station, over the Glenfinnan Viaduct, at the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, and on board the train.

When used for filming Olton Hall also carries a 'Hogwarts Express' headboard on the smokebox featuring the Hogwarts School crest - the same emblem is painted on the 'Hogwarts Railways' sigil on the tender and carriages. For filming she retains her GWR number of 5972 but alternative nameplates are fitted, renaming the engine 'Hogwarts Castle', leading to jokes in the railway preservation community about 'the Hall that thinks it's a Castle'. This is ironic since the Castle Class was a larger type of Great Western locomotive, of which most were named after Castles. The new livery is not well appreciated by purists, particularly the maroon paint which was used by the GWR's rivals the Midland and its successor the LMS -- the GWR used Brunswick Green.

Olton Hall is not the first real locomotive to be disguised as the Hogwarts Express. To promote the books, the Southern Railway locomotive Taw Valley was repainted and renamed temporarily. It was rejected by Chris Columbus as looking ‘too modern’ for the film.

The grand neo-gothic edifice seen in the Chamber of Secrets film is not King's Cross, but the much more elaborate St Pancras station, which is next to King's Cross.

The station that becomes Hogsmeade during filming is Goathland railway station on the preserved North Yorkshire Moors Railway, and can be visited and steam trains be ridden upon. 5972 and the actual Hogwarts express are not based at the NYMR, but identical carriages are in regular service there. The regular summer steam service on the Network-Rail run Fort William-Mallaig line is advertised as a 'Harry Potter Train' because again the carriages are identical, even though the locomotive will not be 5972, and because the line is used extensively in filming the Harry Potter films. (see Jacobite Steam Train).

[edit] Vandalism

On 11 March 2007, vandals caused £75,000 worth of damage to the Hogwarts Express at the West Coast Railway Company depot in Carnforth. Ten youths, aged between 10 and 14 years old, were arrested in connection with the incident in which 337 windows on several trains were smashed.^[2] In September 2003 vandals covered two carriages with graffiti which was removed at a cost of £3,000.^[3]

[edit] Models

Several model trains have been made of the Hogwarts Express. An 00 gauge is produced by Hornby, though this is of a Castle Class locomotive rather than the Hall Class used in the films. A three-rail H0 gauge model is produced by Märklin, and a two-rail H0/00 was produced in the early 2000s by Bachmann. Several now-discontinued L gauge models have been produced by LEGO (set reference). Lionel has released an O gauge set in their 2007 catalogue, as well as a G gauge set for 2008.