BR (LNER) Peppercorn K1: Locomotives, Part 3

This blog post is all about the driving seat.. and the fireman's seat! And the K1 has what look to be very comfy seats indeed.

We start with the clean BR livery.

The K1 features electric lighting, not just for the locomotive and tender lamps but also a cab light in the centre of the roof and an illuminated speedometer - seen above the AWS box. The switch panel for all of this is above the drivers window in the centre left of the picture and all the switches are clickable.

Here we can see more of the driving controls including the latched reverser, sander lever and the blow down test taps for the water sight glasses, all of which work.
We're very pleased with the new refraction effect for the water tube in the sight glasses.

Looking across the cab you can see the roof hatch has been opened (the windows, arm rests and the roof hatch all work) and that the cab light is currently on. The cylinder cocks lever is on the fireman's side and you can see the notation on the cab wall indicating which direction is open.

Looking back at the tender you can see the handles for the handbrake and water scoop, the water taps and a rather handy looking shovel. Wouldn't it be great if pulling that down into the coal pile operated the sim's stoking control? ;-)
And of course there are 2 brew cans on the back shelf, because no self-respecting footplate crew are going anywhere without plenty of tea.

As with all of our releases the 3D firebox is there giving visual feedback on the state of the fire for those who drive without the HUD.

And here we see the dirty BR cab. The same layout as the clean version but with plenty of grime and some steam leaking up through the gaps between the floor and the backhead.

And finally we come to the LNER cab.
The only significant difference is the extra pressure gauge. Although the engine itself doesn't have any air brake equipment this gauge is for the through-train air brake pipe which we're informed is used when preserved locomotives run with mainline trains. This can also be selected for the clean BR livery so it can be used for preserved locomotives.

We also really wanted to show a feature that lots of people have been requesting which is having a headout view as one of the cab views, meaning you can look back inside and operate the controls - something you can't do with the default headout view. This is of course part of all 3 liveries, not just the LNER version.

We're not sure people quite understand how much work it is to do this!
Cab models are usually just the cab interior itself and a little bit of the boiler you can see out of the front windows. Once you can put your head outside then the cab model needs to be everything you can see down one side of the loco as well. And dynamic numbering no longer works in cab views so you have to come up with clever ways to show the correct cab number on the side, and the wheels and lubricators don't animate automatically so you need to come up with some script to do that as well.
But you know what? I'm glad we're doing it now because it makes a world of difference to the driving experience and that's what we're all about at Victory Works.
And it also means you can move the rain deflector if you want to! :-)

Next time we'll start to look at the included rolling stock that will come with the add-on.