Coventry Corporation Transport

Coventry Transport

Preserved Coventry Daimler Fleetline
Commenced operation	1 January 1912
Ceased operation	1 April 1974
Service area	Coventry
Destinations	Coventry, Bedworth, Baginton, Berkswell
Operator	Corporation of the City of Coventry

Coventry Corporation Transport was the operator of trams and motorbuses in Coventry, Warwickshire from 1912 to 1974. The operations of Coventry Corporation Transport passed to West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive in the local government reorganisation of 1974.

On 1 January 1912 Coventry Corporation took over the operations of the Coventry Electric Tramways Company which had until then ran the tramway in the city, a service which had begun in 1895. The purchase price of £220,638 included 13 miles of track, 41 double deck open-top electric tramcars and the depots on Foleshill Road and at Priestley's Bridge on Stoney Stanton Road. A more comprehensive history of the city's tramway system is found at Coventry Corporation Tramways.

The first motor bus service began on 30 March 1914 using six locally made Maudslay vehicles. These were open top double deckers with solid tyres, no windscreen and seats for 34 passengers, and each cost £739. The route was from Stoke Heath to the Fire Station in Hales Street. During the first week of operation, £107 4s 4d was taken in fares. A further service to Hearsall Lane started in May but both were short lived as the chassis were requisitioned by the War Office in September that year.

After the Great War, bus services resumed in 1919 and a bus garage at Harnall Lane was opened in 1921 adjoining the Priestley's Bridge premises. The tramway system reached its peak of 58 tramcars that same year with 6 services to Bedworth, Bell Green, Stoke, Earlsdon, the Allesley Road and the Railway Station.

At the 1925 Commercial Motor Show, Maudslay exhibited one of the first covered top double deckers which the Corporation subsequently purchased. It was not until 1927 however that pneumatic tyres were first fitted to a bus.

In 1931, Pool Meadow Bus Station was opened to cater for nine main routes into the city. The following year the first tram route was abandoned and plans were drawn up to gradually replace the whole system.

The general manager T R Whitehead retired in 1933 and was replaced by Ronald Fearnley, a post which he held for nearly three decades. He became a pioneer in the transport industry, and worked closely with the Daimler Company in the development of an advanced lightweight all-metal bus with 60 seats yet within the maximum length and weight regulations of the time.