Harry Potter's Favourite Railway

Dark, cold and snowy February days require inspiring events to capture the imagination, and the National Railway Museum’s Wizard Week does just that.

We came to York for the day and headed straight for the museum amidst a legion of kids dressed as wizards and sorcerers ranging from Harry Potter to Hermione Granger and Merlin. Upon arrival at the Great Hall, we were invited to create a Wizard ID Card complete with our wizard name, magical skills, thumb print and drawing of ourselves, and we proudly sported our ID Cards around our necks for the rest of the day.

Creating Wizard ID Badges at the start of our wizard day out

The NRM’s Wizard Week flyer promised a fun-packed day, and we were spoilt for choice as we wandered amongst the Great Hall’s superb collection of locomotives including the magnificent Art Deco streamlined Duchess of Hamilton, the Mallard and the enormous Chinese government steam locomotive.

The Mallard and the Duchess of Hamilton sit side by side at the NRM

We’d heard rumours a talking dragon had been spotted at the museum, so we raced off to track him down. Derek (as he’s known) was in the Station Hall holding court with kids and adults alike, entertaining them with his sharp Scottish wit. Having spent the last couple of years living at Alnwick Castle in Northumberland, Derek has flown south to York for the duration of Wizard Week.

Derek regales his audience with tales of dragonlords

At the other end of Station Hall, a crowd were gathered around a marvellous collection of owls, including a snowy owl, European eagle owl, great grey owl and a lovely spectacled owl, wonderful birds with a magical aura enhanced recently by the Potter books and films.

The Falconry Centre near Thirsk presented a wonderful collection of owls

As lunchtime approached, we spotted a couple of life-sized wizards heading for the restaurant on the platform and, keeping a low profile, we followed them and watched them select healthy drinks and tasty-looking hot roast pork and stuffing sandwiches. We did likewise, and took our seats amongst the trains in the themed restaurant, counting a dozen or so Gryffindor scarfs around young wizards’ necks on neighbouring tables.

A couple of passing wizards pause for lunch

Refreshed and raring to go, we raced back to the Great Hall for an explosive trip on a flying carpet in the museum’s year-round attraction – the simulator. Whisked back in time to 5th century Arabia, we were thrown around on an exciting tour of dungeons and labyrinths, and having acquired a taste for flying, we then dashed off to one of the most popular highlights of Wizard Week, the broomstick flying area, where the kids grabbed a broom each and posed in front of a green screen, wind in their hair, flying their brooms over the Hogwarts Express thanks to some trick photography.

Broomstick flying lessons at the National Railway Museum

No sooner had we come back down to earth, when we heard there was a wizard duel taking place back in Station Hall. We arrived just in time to witness a good wizard and an evil wizard fighting over a mystical sword, the good wizard resembling a famous headteacher and claiming to be his cousin…

The Good Wizard entertains the crowd before the Bad Wizard shows up

The wizards performed a magical face off much to the delight of the large audience of kids and adults, but we’ll keep the outcome a secret – you’ll have to head down to Wizard Week yourselves to find out if good prevails.

To round off our day, we ventured outside into the snow just in time to see the Hogwarts Express pulling into the South Yard. We jumped aboard and sat in the very carriage in which Harry met Ron and Hermione at the start of their adventures, and enjoyed a short steam-ride with mercifully no dementors in sight.

A ride on the Hogwarts Express rounded off a terrific day

And so an action-packed day drew to a close, and we’d not even had chance to see the magic tricks and balloon modelling of the Magic Hatter, or any of the interactive science shows or talks on offer throughout the day, but we did spot our favourite wizards of the day in the Station Hall and hope that these two have a chance of winning the best-dressed wizard competition:

Best dressed wizards of the day

The National Railway Museum’s Wizard Week runs throughout half-term until 19 February, is free to enter and is well worth a visit – we had a fabulous day and if you can get round everything on show in a day, you’ll have done better than us!

If you’re heading to York for Wizard Week 2012, check out the York hotels and York B&Bs on Hello Yorkshire.