Hogwarts Express
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 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).
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 six books published to date, he has been on the train ten 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). After each school year, Harry is 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.
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.
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[edit] Platform Nine and Three Quarters
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.
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.
[edit] Portrayal in film adaptations
The steam engine used in the film adaptations is 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, at the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, and on board the train.
The ‘Harry Potter Train’ can be ridden between Pickering and Grosmont, but has been part of a large argument between the companies and local train enthusiasts; since the livery is not historically correct for the locomotive, many enthusiasts claim that the maroon colour has ‘defiled’ the engine. When used for filming Olton Hall also carries a 'Hogwarts Express' headboard on the smoke box 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 alternate 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'. As noted these are the milder of the varied responses to the engine's makeover.
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 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 located adjacent to King's Cross.
[edit] Vandalism
On March 22, 2007 group of six children recently caused £50,000 worth of damage to the Hogwarts Express. The members of the group (some as young as ten ) broke into the West Coast Railway depot at the former Steamtown site in Carnforth,England, and destroyed all the trains windows using the emergency hammers found aboard.
[edit] Models
An OO gauge model is produced by Hornby, though this is of a Castle Class locomotive rather than the Hall Class used in the films. An HO gauge model is produced by Märklin. Several now-discontinued L gauge models have been produced by LEGO (set reference).
