Trial trips by the steam tram were run in August 1884 from the depot at Foleshill to the City Centre, and then to Bedworth.

[3] The tramway opened soon afterwards but as anticipated by the inspector, there was difficulty in turning the sharp corner at the top of Bishop Street where the lines became double.

[4] The steam trams seem never to have been very successful, frequently de-railing and experiencing difficulty in ascending the Bishop Street gradient.

The contractors for the electrification were the General Traction Company of Westminster, and the work was carried out under the supervision of Graff Baker and Winslow.

Coventry was the first tramway in Britain to have side poles with span wires to carry the overhead electrification.

The first electric tram ran to Foleshill Depot (grid reference SP 34481 82294) on 5 December 1895[6] and the service was extended to Bedworth one week later.

The power house in 1895 was built at Foleshill Depot with two Browett, Lindley & Co horizontal engines, running at 240 r.p.m, driving at 650 r.p.m, 4 pole 100 kW generators by means of belts.

In the first fifteen months of corporation ownership it was reported that the tramways had made a net profit of £1,443, and a balance (after allowing for amounts appropriated for new plant) of £185.

[10] In May 1915 the Coventry Tramways Committee approved a trial of employing women as conductors in view of the demand of the war for more men.

On 16 October two trams collided on White Street, which resulted in the death of a passenger, Frederick William Pinfold, who hit the glass door panel of one of the tramcars and sustained fatal injuries.

Four years later, the last extension was opened from Bull's Head Lane along Binley Road to Uxbridge Avenue, for the new General Electric Company plc telephone works.

The Bell Green route operated in two sections on either side of the Prince of Wales cinema, Paradise, as the result of the raid on 12 October 1940.

There were sufficient cars isolated on the outer end of the route to operate the service on the Bell Green side of the crater.

Six buses were totally wrecked, thirteen required almost complete rebuilding, and 181 which had suffered as a result of the night of 14-15 November.