Hogwarts Express

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Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The Hogwarts Express is a fictional magical train in the Harry Potter series. It is ridden by students between London and Hogsmeade. The train starts from King's Cross station platform 9¾, which is invisible to Muggle eyes and is reached 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, for example compartment C, where the Slug Club first met in book 6, is probably near the back of the train. Upon disembarking the train at the Hogsmeade station, first years are treated to a ride across the lake by Hagrid into the Hogwarts Castle; all other students are carried into the main entrance of the castle in coaches drawn by (usually) invisible creatures called thestrals.

Harry Potter met his two best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger on his first ride on the Hogwarts Express. So far he has been on the train ten (possibly eleven) times: twice a year for each of his first six years at Hogwarts except once, in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets when he flew with Ron in a bewitched Ford Anglia (a Muggle car), which crashed on landing and escaped into the woods near the school, and the sixth book ends before Harry leaves Hogwarts. Also in the sixth book, Harry goes to The Burrow over the holidays, but how he gets there is not mentioned. After each school year, Harry was met by his uncle and aunt after getting off the train; even though they hate him very much, they have never failed to pick him up.

It has been suggested that the Hogwarts Express is likely a steam train only in appearance and purpose, borrowing its form and intended function from real steam trains, but not the technology.

Until the 1950s, some British boarding schools hired special trains to transport pupils to and from the school at the beginning and end of each term. This may be the inspiration for the Hogwarts Express.

There are also parallels with Lord Dunsany's fantasy short stories, in which the magical lands at the Edge of the World are reached via a special train from Victoria Station using a purple ticket "that they only give if they know you".

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The Real Thing

Image:GWR 'Hall' 5972 'Olton Hall' at Doncaster Works.JPG The locomotive used in the film adaptations is a Great Western Railway Hall Class 5972 Olton Hall, and is depicted pulling a train of four carriages. The film was filmed at King's Cross railway station and the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. Filming is also conducted inside the train.

The 'Harry Potter Train' is rideable regularly at Pickering (the 'hotspot' of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway), but has been part of a large argument between the companies and local train enthusiasts as the livery is not historically correct for the locomotive, with many enthusiasts claiming that the maroon colour has "defiled" the engine.

It is worth noting that 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 on a temporary basis. This was rejected by Chris Columbus as looking "too modern" for the film.

The real King's Cross Station is not the grand neo-gothic edifice seen in the Chamber of Secrets film; that was in fact the far prettier St Pancras Station which is located next door. The main building of St Pancras is currently closed to trains, but will reopen in 2007 as the new terminus for the Eurostar.

J.K. Rowling discovered after the books were published that she had confused King's Cross with 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, so the filmmakers re-numbered platforms 4 and 5 for the duration of filming.

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."

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Models

An OO gauge model is produced by Hornby, though this is of a Castle Class locomotive rather than a Hall Class. </br>A HO gauge model is produced by Märklin.

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