In 1827, Ottaline Gambol rose to the office of Minister for Magic, and she made a daring and controversial suggestion to solve the ages-old problem of how to transport hundreds of students to and from Hogwarts Castle every school year without attracting the Muggles' attention. Intrigued by Muggle technology, the Minister saw the potential of using a Muggle steam locomotive as a secure and comfortable alternative to Portkeys or to unregulated means of travel. The locomotive for the Hogwarts Express itself was originally built by the Muggle engineers at Crewe, in Cheshire, England, in the early-to-mid 19th century. In 1830, the Ministry of Magic conducted a large-scale operation involving one hundred and sixty-seven Memory Charms, as well as the biggest Concealment Charm ever performed in Britain, in order to acquire the locomotive. The morning after this operation, the residents of Hogsmeade awoke to find the gleaming red Hogwarts Express and a Hogsmeade railway station that had not been there previously, and the Muggle railway employees in Crewe had the feeling they had misplaced something, which stayed with them for the rest of the year. There was initial resistance from pure-blood families against using a Muggle-built device for wizard transportation (which, they claimed, was "unsafe, insanitary, and demeaning"), until the Ministry decreed that students would arrive to school on the train or not attend at all. There is no information on where exactly Hogwarts students were travelling from during the period after the acquisition of the Hogwarts express and the creation of the Hogsmeade station and before the opening of King's Cross Station and the Platform Nine and Three-Quarters in the 1850s.
Hogwarts Express Railway Authorities
The Hogwarts Express Railway Authorities was the body that issued the regulations for the Hogwarts Railways. Ticket holders for the Hogwarts Expresswere subject to the Authorities' rules and regulations.