The red tram on İstiklal looks like it has rattled down this street forever. It hasn't. It was gone for almost thirty years.
Start with the street: about 1.4 km from Tünel Square to Taksim, pedestrian. In Ottoman Turkish it was Cadde-i Kebir, the Grand Avenue. In French, Grande Rue de Péra. In Greek, Megali Odos tou Peran. One street, three names.
This was Pera, the foreign quarter; the missions lining it were embassies until 1923, when the capital moved to Ankara and they followed. The street kept its European feel.
After the Republic it became İstiklal, "Independence", in 1923 or 1927; sources differ.
Now the tram. Istanbul's first trams were horse-drawn, from 1869, Tophane to Ortaköy: about 4.5 million passengers behind 430 horses in the first year, reportedly.
Then 1912: the Balkan War took the horses for the army, and the city had no trams for over a year. Electric trams arrived on 2 February 1914.
They ran until 12 August 1961 on the European side.
On 29 December 1990 the Tünel–Taksim line came back, restored cars out of a museum, as the avenue went pedestrian. Five stops over 1,640 metres: Taksim, Odakule, Galatasaray, Ağa Cami, Tünel. About 6,000 riders a day.
The twist: in 2024 İETT began replacing the overhead-wire cars with battery trams of the same design: 150 km range, 60 passengers, no outside bars to cling to. The plan: wires down, old cars to a museum.
So the "1914 tram" in your photo may be a battery copy. Same look. Different heart.
Walk İstiklal from Taksim toward Tünel. If the red tram is running, ride a stop or two with an İstanbulkart. Whether it runs today, and with which cars, wasn't confirmed when we checked; no official timetable was found. Treat a ride as a bonus, not the plan.
