This perhaps above all others is my greatest disaster... The locomotive was researched from a book, which had no illustrations of the loco in question -so I had to go on what was described.

As described the locomotive was a cab forward with a vertical boiler with a Vee engine at the rear. The fire box was a long tube into which (at the start of each day) a length of tree trunk would be shoved in and set fire to -this giving sufficient fuel for the days labours. The drive to all wheels was via a length of chain which engaged on cogs on each axle. In NZ this method is very common -so was almost expected.

The Cab (as such) consisted of  three doors made by a local carpenter. So, given the rough dimensions given in the book, I proceeded to build my model...

See Picture 1.

Then as I regularly do -I went to Mr John Garners site...

See Picture 2.

As you can see from the diagram above the only thing that agrees with the description is that it has 2 cylinders and 8 wheels.... So, what exactly the gentleman was describing in 1924 was either not a Johnson 8 wheeler or he had a very poor descriptive ability. I now have absolutely no idea of what it is that I have built -however it does match the description very well. Other people reading the text have agreed -so this is just not simply a case of artistic interpretation.

As far as I know there was only one manufacturer called Johnson in NZ -but if there was another then this could explain.