Hogwarts Express performer GWR 4900 Class 5972 “Olton Hall”
Hogwarts Express
The Hogwarts Express is a train that carries pupils non-stop from Platform 9+3⁄4 at King's Cross station in London to Hogsmeade Station, near Hogwarts. 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 Half-Blood Prince, the "Slug Club" meets in compartment C.
The train began use in the 1850s. Before that, pupils used to reach Hogwarts on brooms or enchanted carriages.The steam engine used in the film adaptations is the GWR 4900 Class 5972 Olton Hall, but it was not the first locomotive to be disguised as the Hogwarts Express. To promote the books, the Southern Railway locomotive 34027 Taw Valley was repainted and renamed temporarily, but was rejected by director Chris Columbus as looking 'too modern' for the film. Filming locations for the Hogwarts Express sequences include Goathland on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, Kings Cross railway station and the route of the Jacobite Express which follows the West Highland Line from Fort William to Mallaig in Scotland, as it crosses the Glenfinnan Viaduct.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. Lionel has released an O gauge set in their 2007 catalogue and a G gauge set for 2008.A completely functioning full-scale replica of the Hogwarts Express was created for The Wizarding World of Harry Potter's expansion at Universal Orlando Resort connecting King's Cross Station at the Diagon Alley expansion in Universal Studios Florida to the Hogsmeade station at Islands of Adventure, manufactured by Doppelmayr Garaventa Group in the form of a funicular railway people mover. The Hogwarts Express King's Cross Station features a wall between Platforms 9 and 10, where guests can "walk through" to get to Platform 9+3⁄4, as in the first film.