The Hogwarts Express (but it makes sense now)

The Hogwarts Express

So the Hogwarts express is another thing that doesn't really make sense. In general I like the idea of The Hogwarts Express so I won't touch it too much, I even love the history behind it from JKR, which you can find online. It makes sense to me, for once. However there are some glaring flaws. 1000-ish kids aged 11-17 on one train with no adult supervision? No way. I mean, logistically, if it were a modern, muggle high speed mega train in a big city it may be able to fit 1000 people on board, maybe. But alas, it's not. It's a steam train, and steam trains don't have engines powerful enough to pull that many carriages. 

Based on a train similar to the one used as The Hogwarts express (it's called The Jacobite steam train and it does run through Scotland, even over the iconic viaduct from the films) there are seven passenger carriages on the train, and I count seven main windows on each carriage, so times that by two and we have fourteen compartments per carriage.

I know that in the real train, the compartments we see in the films are likely the 'first class' section and what we see in the Deathly Hallows train raid are the regular seats, but I like the compartments so we're going with that being the norm here. I also understand that in the films there are not compartments on both sides of the train, but I'm already pressed for space here and this is my world now so deal with it. I visualise a big hallway with compartments on either side, I don't think this is too unreasonable as we know from canon that there are charms to make things larger internally than they initially appear to be from the outside.

SO. Seven carriages. Fourteen compartments per carriage. From what I saw on set photos and in the films, each compartment seats 6 kids (but you could get in 8 as the seats are huge if more people WANT to sit together.)