“It took us four weeks to build what you are about to see,” says Jim O’Boyle, a Coventry city councillor. The sight is not exactly spectacular. Behind a fence in the city centre, a small team of workers have constructed a short tram line. The tracks begin abruptly outside an estate agent, run gently downhill, turn a corner, then stop after a mere 220 metres. But the humdrum nature of the project is the exciting thing about it.