In the late 1930's Sir Nigel Gresley designed a small class of 3 cylinder 2-6-0s for the West Highland line, working to Fort William and Mallaig. They featured Gresley's conjugated valve gear to operate the inside cylinder. These were class K4 (see Fife: Thornton Junction for a preserved example). Gresley's successor, Edward Thompson, rebuilt one of these as a 2 cylinder simple, later No 61997. This was the first K1, of 1945. Arthur Peppercorn followed Thompson as Chief Mechanical Engineer of the LNER, and developed this into the 'production' K1s which were a little longer than the Thompson rebuild.

No 62005 was built in Glasgow by North British in 1949, and became something of a celebrity loco in the 1960's, hauling well remembered enthusiasts trips, like the '3 Dales' tour and double heading with the preserved K4 'The Great Marquess' on another special. It hauled the Royal train on one occasion, even if it was mainly to provide steam heat for an overnight stop. And it cheated destruction, too. At the end of steam in North East England in 1967, it was sent to the North Tees oil refinery, at Port Clarence, as a temporary stationary boiler, where it spent some months. Then it moved to storage in Leeds, where there were plans to use the boiler as a spare for the K4. Again, the K1 defied the odds, and was donated complete to the North Eastern Locomotive Preservation Group, who restored it to working order by 1975.

Since then it has run thousands of miles all over the country on steam specials, as well as on preserved railways, but is best known for its workings over the West Highland between Fort William and Mallaig, where it is a regular performer. My album photo shows it on a special running fast past Billingham in LNER green livery. It never carried this paint scheme in fact, but that green looks so good. Currently it is operating in more historically correct BR lined black as 62005.