What is the name of the train that J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter takes to Hogwarts?

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter takes the Hogwarts Express to school.

The Hogwarts Express is the scarlet steam train that transports students between London and Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It departs from platform nine and three-quarters at King’s Cross railway station on 1 September, the usual start of the school year. Harry first boards it in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

The train provides an important recurring setting for conversations, friendships, and conflicts. Harry meets Ron Weasley on the journey to Hogwarts, and the two later meet Hermione Granger. The compartments also appear in several books and films as the characters travel between school and home.

The Hogwarts Express is fictional, but the films made the train visually memorable through the use of a real steam locomotive, locomotive 5972 Olton Hall, renamed Hogwarts Castle for filming. King’s Cross also created a Platform 9¾ attraction for visitors, although the magical platform itself is part of Rowling’s fiction.