Coventry Trams

My dad was a CCT tram conductor prior to the Blitz, and when working the spreadover shift he would come home about 9.30am until 12noon. He always brought his ticket box with him and filled in his waybill. What I remember is the packs of new tickets and the colours you describe. I was only three years old but the pleasant odour from that box of tickets I can still remember. I wish my memory was as good at yesterday's events as the ones years ago.

During the war years the city council-run British restaurants used these TIM machines when you ordered a meal, also the city libraries used them when you paid a fine for the late return of books. I presume the transport dept. supplied the machines as surplus stock, I know they maintained them. I think the transport dept. finally disposed all TIM machines about 1961 and sold them as scrap to Heath Road salvage, they then sold them to anyone for 7/6d each. I bought one for my son to play with.

Saw this Tramways Department notice on the back of a 2d ticket!

Although Coventry City Council failed to save or do anything with the old tramlines at the former Foleshill Tram Depot, it was left in the end to myself and a Coventry tram historian friend of mine to save and salvage whatever we could, while we had the chance. At the place of their disposal, a number of pieces were salvaged and this here (at 4ft 6" long!) is one of the pieces saved, which I've now re-laid in my back garden!

We used to place them between thumb and forefinger in a rainbow fan shape, but an old lady that ran a sweet shop in her front window used them to tell us the price of bags of sweets.

Here are some old "COVENTRY CORPORATION TRAMWAYS" tickets, so as to show you what they were like and the colours that they were, as previously mentioned on here. You'll notice that there are two different types of both the 1d, 2d and 3d tickets, although which one is the older of the two types, that I sadly don't know? The tickets with the big "R" printed on them, are "RETURN" tickets! I didn't realize that there were never any 5d tram tickets at all until I saw the post further up above, which explains now why I've never been able to find any ??? lol.

Here are some more tickets, this time displaying "COVENTRY CORPORATION TRAMWAYS MOTOR OMNIBUSES" on them! As you can see, there are still a few gaps to be filled in among this little set and I'm hoping that I might be able to do that, as I've still got a box full of old Coventry tickets to sort through and catalogue yet? Although identical in size and very similar in their colours too, I do know that a lot of them in the box are the later "COVENTRY CORPORATION TRANSPORT" type tickets, but I'm 99.9% sure that some older motor omnibuses tickets are among them as well? (Hopefully!!! lol).

Hi & thank you for these posts. Brill!

My mum, who lived in Spon End (considered a very poor, rough area then), grew up with the trams. She and her friends used to put an old halfpenny on the track, and watch the tram squash and distort it.

Does anyone know how the 32 tram came to be 'rested' in Maxstoke?

When the trams were scrapped due to the Coventry blitz, tram 32 was bought by Mr Cartwright, timber merchant, for use as a garden chalet. He also bought tram 47 or 48 complete with top deck for use as an office at his timber trade which stood at the top of Harnall Lane West and Foleshill Road.

Out of interest I've mailed the Transport Museum about No.32 to see if there's ever been an attempt to 'rescue' the few bits of wood that may be left of it! Surely it would be worth being somewhere like the Museum right back in the city centre where it belongs! Don't hold your breath but watch this space.

Colcov, during the early fifties I worked at Cartwright's timberyard a couple of times for a short time, it was in the Canal Basin, on the left hand side looking from Bishop Street, next to the plumbing shop, one stack of timber was in between the two canals, got burnt down once, I never saw a tram, or heard of one mentioned, but then I was dumb to them things in those days.

The tram was sited at the Harnall Lane West and Springfield Road junction on land where the Polish Church stands. It was put there about March 1941 until after the war. I think this would have been when Cartwright moved to the Canal Basin site. The Coventry Telegraph printed a story and photo of the tram when it was placed at this site. I wonder if the Telegraph have records of this article.

Plans for trams to return to Coventry - report