 It went on to outlast every other class of steam locomotive in regular service on the VR, and no fewer than 21 examples of the 53 originally built have survived into preservation.The K class was the first design from the VR Locomotive Design Section under the stewardship of Alfred E Smith as Chief Mechanical Engineer.The Locomotive Design Section had introduced successful mainline and branchline passenger locomotives with the A2 class and Dd class 4-6-0s, and had recently improved mainline goods services with the C class 2-8-0.