The New York, Chicago & St. Louis was not a major passenger carrier. Its major passenger corridor was from Buffalo to Chicago. With 28 scheduled and 12 conditional stops, plus numerous meets with freight trains on its single track main line, there was no way the Nickel Plate could compete with the parallel four-track mainline of the mighty New York Central.

Yet, by 1922 the Nickel Plate's six rather ordinary daily passenger trains had grown to about ten cars in length, and these trains were taxing the limits of the railroad's 4-6-0's. The railroad received four K-1a Pacifics from Lima in December, 1922, and ordered six more very similar K-1bs from Alco, Brooks soon thereafter. The six Brooks locomotives were all delivered by August, 1923.

These locomotives came from the factory with few of the appliances that were normal for new steam locomotives in the 1920's. Between October, 1924 and August, 1925 all ten K-1s had Nicholson thermatic syphons installed in their fireboxes. In November 1924, K-1a #161 had a Worthington BL-3 feedwater heater applied, but the Nickel Plate concluded the other nine K-1s did not warrant the additional expense of feedwater heaters. In 1926, all ten K-1s had Automatic Train Stop equipment added, and their drivers were fitted with thicker tires, increasing the driver diameter by one inch. The K-1s were hand fired, although the K-1bs belatedly received BK stokers in 1947. The Nickel Plate scrapped all their 4-6-2s between August, 1952 and June, 1954.