Harry Coventry

by Kenneth Shattock, from his upcoming book:



Henry J. "Harry" Coventry was born in England in 1887. Just one year after Victor Shattock was born in the same country. He came to the USA sometime in the early teens. At one time he was employed by the Baldwin Locomotive Works as well as the Baltimore & Ohio railroad. He was a Professional Engineer and a superb draftsman.

Beginning sometime in the nineteen-tens, he started designing various "live steam" models. One of his first was a 1/2 inch scale, 2-1/2 inch gauge Pennsylvania Railroad "K4" Pacific 4-6-2. This model was featured in 1924 in the The Modelmaker magazine, from which blueprints and castings could be ordered. After this. Mr. Coventry designed a 1/2 inch scale P7 "President Washington" 4-6-2; a 1/3 horsepower marine compound engine; a 3/4 inch scale P7 President; a 3/4 inch scale 0-6-0; a 1 inch scale 4-4-0 and 4-6-0; a British "Single" in 1 inch scale, and various other models.

Mr. Coventry sold the finest blueprints and castings available, and did so from his home in Baltimore, Maryland from about 1920 to about 1970. Thereafter, he sold castings from his new home in McAlester Oklahoma.

In the 1970s, he began selling off his foundry patterns and the master drawings, probably just to "raise some cash". The designs that had been "under one roof" and managed by one man since before 1920, were now divided up among various owners. One design went "here", another went "there", and "these ones" all went "somewhere else". And "somewhere else" was not "one" location. It was a half-dozen locations. Only one design, the 3/4 inch scale P7 President, ended up with an owner who had the ability and the will to keep the design on the market. Miniature Power Products of Canada kept the 3/4 inch scale P7 on the market from the 1970s to the 2000s.

Most of the other designs were lost, disposed of, destroyed by accident, or left in barns, basements, or attics and then forgotten about. Very few had caring ownership. Patterns and drawings were separated. Some were loaned out and not returned. Some were left at foundries. Some were discarded. Some were sold to second and third parties. And some were just rotting away in barns. Mr. Coventry died on February 2, 1987, just 5 days before what would have been his 100th birthday. What was left of his designs were sold off at auctions and yard sales.

An effort by a volunteer group to produce a few of Mr. Coventry's designs in the early 1990s didn't get very far....the patterns were destroyed in a fire, before castings could be produced.

Beginning in the late 1990s, and lasting well into the 2000s, Friends Models of Massachusetts sought, located, and purchased most of Mr. Coventry's designs, and bought the remnants of Mr. Coventry's estate that they could locate. They were fortunate in that they found most of which he sold off in the 1970s, and a lot of which was "split up" upon his death. They bought it solely for the purpose of "getting it back under one roof", and so that it could be produced again.

Then they began having the old patterns repaired and upgraded, and in some cases, replaced with new patterns. The 1 inch scale 4-4-0 American and 4-6-0 Ten Wheeler, and the 3/4 inch scale 0-6-0 Switcher, were the first "long lost" H.J. Coventry designs that they produced.

The prototype P7 #5300 locomotive was built by Baldwin in 1927 for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Twenty locomotives of the class were built, and they were named after the first 20 presidents.

This 3/4 inch scale live steam locomotive was designed by Mr. Coventry in the early-1930s at the request of several live steamers who had built Mr. Coventry's 1/2 inch scale version of it (starting in 1928) and who wanted a larger, heavier "live steamer" to build and run. Thus the 3/4 inch scale P7 "came to be" and debuted in the early 1930s; it was advertised in The Modelmaker magazine at that time. It became Mr. Coventry's most popular and well-known design. Many examples were built and are still running today.

The 3/4 inch scale P7 design was commercially available from Mr. Coventry until sometime in the 1960s. In the 1960s, the P7 design was sold to a new owner. In fact by the 1970s, the 3/4 inch scale Coventry P7 design had changed ownership no fewer than three times; it was off the market for most if not ALL of that time; and it even traveled from Connecticut to California during these ownership changes. Finally, it was purchased by Miniature Power Products in Ontario Canada in 1979, which put it back on the market and produced castings for it from 1979 until 2010.

When "Friends" acquired the design, the first order of business was to replace the missing valve and exhaust coring. Miniature Power Products was not able to get good results in the valve coring, so a plain core for the valve had been substituted. In 2012, Friends had new coring made, brand new, that would allow a cylinder to be cast that would be EXACTLY to Mr. Coventry's original design specifications. With all complex "steps" and passages "cored in", the cylinder will be able to be much-more-easily machined by "amateur" or "hobbyist" machinists, than prior. In fact it can be done on a 10 inch lathe with faceplate. This is old-fashioned American patternmaking at its best; it is the first time since the 1960s that these cylinders will be produced with this specialized coring; and the first time in decades that the cylinders will be "as Mr. Coventry" envisioned & designed them.