LONDON — The operator of the seasonal steam excursion known as the “Harry Potter train” has lost a court bid to block actions by British regulators, leaving in doubt the future of its operation of the celebrated train in the Scottish Highlands.
West Coast Railways operates the train officially known as The Jacobite, which appears as the Hogwarts Express in the Harry Potter movies. The company had challenged Britain’s Office of Rail and Road over its requirement that the trains should have a central, automatic door-locking system on its railcars [see “Scotland’s famed ‘Harry Potter’ steam train faces regulatory threat,” Trains News Wire, Dec. 4, 2023], saying the conversion could cost £7 million ($8 million) — wiping out most of its profits for a decade.
But a High Court judge dismissed the case, saying the Office of Rail and Road had taken a “justifiable” approeach and that it was “common sense” that the automatic locking system would be safer than one “dependent on no more than an assumption by the guard that the stewards have locked the doors,” the BBC reports.
Scotland’s The Herald newspaper notes that the judge’s ruling said the ORR’s upper estimate to outfit four trains with central locking was just under £1.4 million and that a £10 increase in the fare — which has a current average ticket price of £46.58, or about $59.15 — would generate an additional £1 million annually.
WCR commercial manager James Shuttleworth told the BBC the company will “reflect and consider options to enable us to continue running safe services enjoyed by so many visitors from the UK and around the world, upon which local businesses along our route rely. We are committed to working with the ORR to find a long-term solution which safeguards the future of heritage services.”
An ORR representative said the agency welcomed the ruling and noted that other heritage operators “have made the necessary investment to install central door locking … It remains open to the West Coast Railway Company Limited to do the same.”
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