A Knight Bus(r) for Train and Town Hobbyists

Whatever you think of J.K. Rowling, you have to admit that she is clever and creative. The early books, especially, are constantly introducing new and clever aspects of the "Wizarding World(r)" that no one ever thought of before.

One of them is a sort of magical emergency rescue vehicle that transports stranded wizards to safe places. In The Prisoner of Azkaban , it takes Harry Potter from a bench in the Dursleys' neighborhood through the streets of London to the Leaky Cauldron.

When setting up models to represent aspects of the Wizarding World on my garden railway, I thought it would be fun to have a Knight Bus, maybe even one that would run on my track.

Prototypes and Models

I looked at many options, including realistic models of the double-decker bus that the Knight Bus was modeled on.

According to the https://harrypotter.fandom.com/ site, This was a AEC Regent III RT.

These were designed before WWII, and operated, with modifications throughout the 1950s (you can't have anything too modern in the Wizarding World, after all).

The photo below was taken in 1972. Jimmy Baikovicius from Montevideo, Uruguay uploaded it to Wikipedia around 2012. According to Baikovicius, the woman in the blue coat is his mother. If you're wondering about the timeframe, note the Woolworth store in the background.

To see fine details, click on the photo.

There are countless die-cast double-decker toys, but most of them are far too small to go with my trains.

One model that was promising was Revell Germany's model of a similar double-decker (above right). Painting the shells purple and kitbashing two of them together wouldn't be that difficult for me. That said, coming up with the cash to buy two of them would have been, er, interesting. They're currently selling for around $100@ at Amazon. Other sites sell it cheaper, but charge shipping, so it comes out about the same.

I finally settled on the Lego(r) Kit, currently available from Amazon for about $60. I think I got it cheaper by shopping around, but it doesn't seem to be in production any more so they are getting harder to find, and the price is going up.

The Lego set is a little too small for my trains, and it may be a little too large for, say a Lionel railroad or holiday village. But we are talking fantasy, right?

The bus comes with a little Harry Potter, his case, the driver, a bed or two, the shrunken head, and the conductor, who is a character in at least two of the books, named Stan Shunpike. That said this conductor seems a bit generic. Poor Stan never gets a break.

Assembly

The instructions are only pictures. They aren't bad, although sometimes you have to turn the pieces over a few times to see exactly which pieces you're supposed to use where.

Having pieces in separate bags you open one at a time (mostly) is good, too.

As you approach the end of the project, you'll learn that a few of the little pieces that sit on the bottom don't attach all that well, so picking the thing up, or even bumping it will cause them to fall off.

If I was going to use this as a permanent feature of my railroad, I believe I would start by gluing some of those pieces together. Yes, I realize that's Lego heresy!

I didn't take many photos of the early stages since parts were a little confusing and for a time I feared we had messed something up and would have to take it apart again.

Of course long-time Lego hobbyists would work faster and have more confidence.

The photo to the right shows the first level completed.

The photos below show the left and right side once we got the second story attached.

We did eventually get all the pieces where they were supposed to be, I think.

I confess that the levers the driver is supposed to be pulling did not seem to line up where they were supposed to. Of course I may have interpreted the instructions wrong. But nobody can tell from outside the thing anyway.

That fall, I used the Lego Knight Bus on my outdoor railroad as part of a Halloween display that included the Lionel battery-powered G gauge Hogwart's Express.

For a bigger view of the photo above, click on the photo to the right. At the top is a Lehmann Porter pulling a string of HLW mini-gondolas. Below that is a Bachmann train that I repainted and relettered as a "ghost train."

The castles are Fisher Price toys that I painted and weathered. The coats of arms are the family arms that our family's ancestors would have had, had they been nobles.

The Knight Bus is a Lego product (but you knew that)

The Hogwarts Express is a battery-powered G gauge Lionel toy train. Lionel currently makes the same train, but it runs on 2" track. It's not compatible with my railroad's track, but it is fun to put on a side porch, etc.

In the foreground is an HLW gas-electric pulling a string of HLW mini-gondolas filled with "putka pods," which look like tiny pumpkins.

If you look very carefully above the castle to the right, you'll see Harry, Hermione, and Ron flying on broomsticks over the castle, presumably avoiding the dragon on the other castle. These are cake decorations that haven't been made in some time, I'm afraid.

Plans?

I'm thinking about maybe setting this display up away from my permanent railroad this year. We'll see.

When I ordered the Lego Knight Bus, I imagined putting a "power truck" underneath it so it could run on my train tracks. That's still possible, but it would take disassembling the bottom and rebuilding it completely. And none of the power trucks I had are quite the right size. Again, we'll see.

Please have a wonderful holiday season this year, and please enjoy any time you have with your family in the coming days!

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