<Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> </Td> <Td> </Td> <Td> </Td> <Td> </Td> <Td> </Td> <Td> </Td> </Tr> <P> The Hogwarts Express is a train that carries students non-stop from Platform ​ 9 ⁄ 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 . </P> <P> The train began use in the 1850s . Before that, students used to reach Hogwarts on brooms or enchanted carriages . </P> <P> 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 . </P>

Where did the harry potter house names come from