1877. In 1888 the second electric tram system in the world was inaugurated in Vevey, linking the city to Montreux and Château de Chillon. By 1923, a total of 29 towns and cities in the country operated tram networks, and at 170 km in extension and operating beyond the country's borders into France, Geneva's tram network became Europe's largest system After WW2 and the introduction of buses and trolleybuses, many of the networks shrunk. Geneva lost all but one of its lines, and some cities closed their trams, including Fribourg, Lausanne, Lugano, Biel/Bienne, Luzern, Vevey, Montreux, St. Gallen, Schaffhausen, or Zug. However, Switzerland is remarkable in that a few major cities kept their networks mostly intact until today. For example, although some of the tram lines extending beyond the city of Zurich closed down, the vast majority of lines within the city did not suffer any closures. Similarly, Bern and Basel kept most of their tram lines intact. Because, with the exception of Geneva and Lausanne, the country's major cities have not lost their tram systems, Switzerland has not witnessed a major re-construction of trams as happened in the rest of Europe in the decades following the 1990s. The major exception is Geneva, where the system has been growing back again from the one line and 8 km that was left out of its original network, to 5 lines and 36 km. By the end of 2019, with the opening of line 17, the network had once again extended over the border to the French city of Annemasse, with planned future extensions to over 50 km by 2026. Turkey The first tram line in Istanbul was constructed by Konstantin Karapano Efendi, and started operating on 31 July 1871 between the districts of Azapkapi and Ortaköy. In 1869, the tram company "Dersaadet Tramvay Şirketi" was established. 430 horses were used to draw the 45 carriages, including 15 summer-type and some double-deckers, on meter gauge track. In 1912, the horse-drawn tram had to cease to operate for one year because the Ministry of Defence sent all the horses to the front during the Balkan War. The tram network was electrified by overhead contact wire on 2 February 1914. The tram began to run on the Anatolian part of Istanbul on 8 June 1928 between Üsküdar and Kisikli. By the 1950s, the length of the tram lines reached 130 km. Trams were in