The Hogwarts Express is a fictional magical train in the Harry Potter series of books. It is ridden by students between London and Hogwarts. The train stops at King's Cross station platform 9¾, which is invisible to Muggle eyes and is reached through the barrier between platforms 9 and 10. Upon disembarking the train at Hogwarts, first years are treated to a ride across the lake by Hagrid, all other students are carried 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 nine times: twice a year for each of his first five 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 (later to save him from the gigantic spiders in the Forbidden Forest). 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 its intended function from real steam trains, but not the technology.
The Real Thing
The locomotive used in the film adaptations is a Great Western Railway Hall Class Ogden Hall, and is depicted pulling a train of four carriages. The film was filmed at Kings 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 it is not run in the colour intended for the engine, with many enthusiasts claiming that the purple colour has defiled the once-beautiful engine.
J.K. Rowling discovered after the books were published that she had confused Kings Cross with Euston Station, and that platforms 9 and 10 at Kings 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.
Models
An OO gauge model is produced by Hornby, though this is of a Castle Class locomotive rather than a Hall Class.
