The Warner Brothers Studio Tour London – The Making of Harry Potter, has officially launched its new 20,000sq ft (1,858sq m) Platform 9 ¾ expansion, bringing the original Hogwarts Express back to its studio home for visitors to enjoy.
The new permanent addition to the studio tour offers Potter fans a look around Platform 9 ¾, recreated to look exactly as it did in the film franchise.
“We’d been planning for about a year-and-a-half to bring the train back to its film home,” said Sarah Roots, vice president of Warner Bros Studio Tour London, speaking exclusively to
AM2.
“It’s a really iconic part of the film series because it’s the first shot where Harry Potter goes to Platform 9 ¾ to get the train to go to Hogwarts for the first time and then it’s the last shot in
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 – the last film – where the key cast, Harry, Ron and Hermione, take their children to Platform 9 ¾ to put their children on the train to Hogwarts. In between, it’s the first time the children meet and it’s also the first time that Harry encounters a dementor – all on the Hogwarts Express.”
The attraction gives visitors the opportunity to push a trolley through the wall of Platform 9 ¾, which, unlike its Kings Cross counterpart, is a free experience with guests able to use their own cameras rather than have a photo taken professionally, though that option is also available.
Visitors can then board the Hogwarts Express and see the train’s interior, with each carriage compartment set up for a different film in the series. The experience also offers a look at an interactive carriage – a modified version set up to accommodate an entire film crew so guests can see how the train scenes were shot.
Finally, guests are be able to sit in an open carriage with false windows showing an array of special effects, including the iconic flying Ford Anglia and dementors coming onto the train.
“All of the sets, props and costumes are authentic," continued Roots. “We asked Stuart Craig – an Oscar and BAFTA winning production designer who worked on all of the films – and his design team to work up the plans. They worked up those plans on exactly how they built platform 9 ¾ for filming.
“We also asked Paul Hayes – who was the head of department for construction on the
Harry Potter film series – to come back here and to get his crew who worked on the films to recreate the space so it’s exactly as it was for the film.
“We used all of the techniques they do in filmmaking. For example the brickwork is made of fiberglass. It comes in on a sheet and then they paint the sheet. Where the train pulls in the brick work is painted slightly darker. On the other side it’s slightly lighter because that’s how it would be in a station like that. that’s the level of detail we’ve gone to for Platform 9 ¾.”
The train itself is the 78-year-old ‘Olton Hall’. It is displayed on a set of tracks with steam billowing out of its chimney and wheels – rigged by special effects supervisor John Richardson – as visitors step onto the platform.
“With the help of the train specialist, the owner of the train and also our head of department from Harry Potter who moved the train around during the films, we brought the train in on a flatbed truck,” said Roots explaining about the process of moving the train to its new permanent home. “The train was then moved along an extended track and then the building was built with the train already inside.
“The train was built in 1937 and as a freight train did more than one million miles of active service on the rail network around the UK. The train was restored and used through all the filming, so it’s the genuine article. The craftsmen recreated all the fabulous grandeur of the train and of the platform. It’s a stunning space.”
