I’ve decided to marry my 2 most recent hobbies, Model Railroading and Harry potter. Yes I might have to take them to Massachusets to get the service done (they’ll marry anyone there I hear).
Anyway, while there is a few manufacturers of the Hogwarts Express (the train that lugs the kids off to boarding school) in HO, nothing soing in N scale.
The actual train used in the movie is a GWR Hall class with a custom paint job. So I was hoping to find one of those or something darn close to it (I’m willing to chop it up a bit to get the job done if needs be)
Bachmann now own a British manufacturer “Graham Farish” who have been producing British steam models for some years now. The transfer of the work to China has brought an improvement in quality (which was needed).
I can’t raise Bachmann’s site right now, and I’m not sure that “GF” are listed there, but I’m sure they have made both a “Hall” and the fairly similar “Castle” 4-6-0s. To my knowledge, neither has been available as “Hogwarts Castle” in red.
These are to the British scale of 1:148 rather than the usual N scale of 1:160, but for a Hogwarts model this should not be a problem. Even with the larger scale, it will be much smaller than most US steam locomotives, except perhaps the Jupiter 4-4-0.
Wow, such service. Absolutely spectacular. Thank you so much. And it’s not even going to break the bank.
My local train shop should know how to get this too me ya?
Now you mentioned a difference in scale, it will still roll on the normal track? And would it look silly pulling standard N scale coaches in which case I should buy the coaches from accross the pond also.
The track, wheels couplers (Rapido-type) and so on British N models on are all standard. You may be able to get Kadee replacement couplers.
To reproduce the “Hogwarts Express” you should get Graham Farish “British Railways Mark 1 Corridor Coaches” in the Maroon colour scheme. While the locomotive was repainted, only the crests were altered on the cars (which were Maroon) and in N scale you would need a magnifier to read the crest. These are GBP 12.50 each.
In the short term, if you had round roof cars in Pennsylvania or Norfolk and Western dark red colours, they would be reasonably close, but would look a bit large, even with the slightly over scale locomotive. The British coaches are only 64 feet long and about 12 feet 6 inches high.
If your local hobby shop is willing to place an order for you, that would be one way to go. There are large English hobby shops that will ship to you direct for a credit card order. I have used one of the latter mail orders quite successfully.
I’m told the guys that repainted “Olton Hall” for the movie used the red for “English Welsh and Scottish” diesel locomotives, whose scheme was based on the Wisconsin Central colours anyway. Check the colour against photos so you get the shade you want.