[2] The British Electric Traction Company had been founded in 1896, and were involved in building and operating tramways across the United Kingdom.
The scheme was for 4 miles (6.4 km) of tramway, running from Trecynon to the north-west of the town, to Abercwmboi, to the south-east, where they hoped it could join up with a system being proposed by Mountain Ash Urban District Council.
Aberdare UDC intended to open the two systems on the same date,[4] and in this it was unique in the United Kingdom, as no other towns built an integrated tram and trolleybus network at the same time.
They were unusual in that they used the Cedes Stoll system for current collection, where a four-wheeled trolley ran along the top of the pair of overhead wires.
Of the four routes, only that to Cwmaman had two sets of overhead wires, enabling the trolleybuses to pass one another when travelling in opposite directions.
Because there were no wires from the separate trolleybus routes to the depot, the cars were fitted with a boom to collect power from the overhead tram wires, and a slipper to complete the circuit through the tram tracks, enabling them to reach their starting points under their own power.
This system was soon abandoned, the trolleybuses being towed to their starting points by tram each morning, and returned to the depot in the evening by the same method.
The Cedes Stoll system was of Austrian manufacture, and spare parts were unobtainable with the onset of the First World War.
[6] At that time, proposals for linking up the tram system to those of Rhondda and Pontypridd were voiced, but when the council invited tenders in 1920, they were for the conversion of the two trolleybus routes southwards from Aberaman into tramways.
[6] Keighley had been another user of the Cedes-Stoll system, but in 1924 had begun the process of changing to a more conventional method of current collection.