[2] By the week ending 23 August, Mr William Gumbley the manager reported 6,780 passengers with total receipts of £67 1s 10d.

Before it could open the system was examined by Major General Charles Scrope Hutchinson[4] Inspector of Railways for the Board of Trade in the company of Mr Yockney C.E., the company engineer, John Howard F.R.G.S., the contractor and Mr. Duqeumin the State Surveyor and permission was granted to operate the service with two conditions:[5] Service commenced on 6 June 1879 and was well received, 2,000 people being carried on the first two days.

From this time there was a gradual loss of passengers owing to horse bus competition, favoured no doubt by the freedom from noise and smoke.

Apart from an experimental line in Leeds, it was the first street tramway in the British Isles to be supplied with current from an overhead wire.

The Railway Company also bought out the horse bus competition for £3,000 (equal to £420,285 today), plus £1,500 shares.

The depot was at Hougue à la Perre, and consisted of a shed with three tracks with pits, together with the power house and workshops, all built of stone and brick.

The generating plant comprised two compound steam engines of 25 hp each, and two boilers each fitted with a Friedman injector and a feed water heater, and fed by a Worthington pump.

The power was supplied to the cars by a trolley wire of 9mm copper, spanned at between 40 and 48 yards about 2 feet outside the track on light bracket arm poles.

[7] For the three months ending 31 December 1893, the usage statistics were as follows:[7] The normal weekday service was 10 minutes.

During the match they were parked on the siding at Vale Road, when the crews were apparently at liberty to watch the game so this "split turn" was not unpopular.