Commonly 1" scale is a close scale reproduction of Broad Gauge (5' 3") locomotives in 5" gauge, but a little bit of thought has gone into whether we can make these same locomotives a little bit more competatively sized in 5" gauge. Some of the VR locos were designed for gauge conversion to Standard Gauge, being the designs from the 1920s and later. The VR N class, R class, J class and so forth were designed with different techniques such as removing spacer blocks and machining frame stretchers to bring the cylinders and wheels in by 6-1/2". The earlier designs were theoretically not "gauge convertable" but many wonderful things can be done to a model.
1-1/8" scale is popular for standard gauge models in 5" gauge, which gives an easy scale factor of 3/32" per inch full size. The features and benefits of this scale is that the locos are a little bigger than "true scale" but improvements occur to the mechanicals and boiler with an increase in size, not to mention the added wieght with a cubic volume increase. My personal philosophy is that we are trying to show the locomotive, and the slight size increase helps the loco look a bit more realistic on the ground level track, as the flat bar rail we use is quite over-scale anyway.
Some of the first parts have arrived and are being tested for fit. So far the wheel patterns are underway, and we have some beautiful CNC machined buffers on the go as well. Some laser cut parts are here for the tenders, and work is progressing on the design.
The design for the K class will incorporate an improved regulator and superheater setup in the boiler, CNC machined parts, and a large selection of water cut and laser cut steelwork. The prototype is a "Series 1" K class, whcih has the original flared tender and chimney, and no smoke deflectors.
You can read a bit more about the K class on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_Railways_K_class
www.npwoolley.com
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