This is a real masterpiece! Edvin Johansson (1897 – 1975) has built the large model locomotive SJ A7 no. 1749 in the scale 1:10. Edvins daughter, Cajsa Makris, who lent us the model estimates that it took about 25000 hours to build! You may understand why!

About Edvin

Edvin grew up i Hornsborg, a village south of Ljungby, and went to school in Kånna. His parents were farm labourers.
Edvin started working as a farm worker at the age of twelve. After working for a few years as a stoker on the Skåne-Smålands Railway he was taken on at the engine workshops in Strömsnäsbruk. In 1940 he was employed as shop foreman at HNJ (Halmstad-Nässjö Järnvägar) and became head manager in 1957. He was known as ”At Home-Johansson” because he often said ”like we always do at home”.

He set up a workshop in the basement at 12 Kristian IV Road, in Halmstad where he moved in in 1942. First of all he built a drill, a lathe, a grinder and tools in order to start building the model. He made a track at the end of the 1950s and laid it out around the house. The locomotive chuffed around on fine summer’s days. The steam engine was fired with meths tablets.

The Original Engine

Dalslands Järnväg bought the engine, a locomotive of the H3 class, in 1914 from Nohab in Trollhättan and named it DJ H3 9.
Length: 17.38 m
Weight: 60.4 tonnes
Traction wheel diameter: 1.72 m
Speed: 90 km/hr

The locomotive was sold to Halmstad-Nässjö Järnvägar in 1940 and was given the letters P7 and number 51. When the railways were nationalised by Statens Järnvägar (SJ) in 1945 the locomotive was given the letters A7 and number 1749.

The locomotive served the branch between Halmstad-Nässjö during the 1950s and then was stationed at Borås as a reserve engine during the cold war. The engine was taken officially out of service in 1970, then scrapped in Vislanda in 1972.