Grand union
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See also: Grand Union Canal, Grand Union supermarket
In North American street railway practice, a grand union is a rail track junction where two two-track railway lines meet, usually at a street intersection, and railroad switches allow any streetcar coming from any direction to turn either left or right onto the intersecting line.
These complex junctions, an example of special work, offered great operating flexibility, but were expensive to build and expensive to maintain. Special parts, sometimes made of manganese steel, were needed for each location where one rail crossed another, and these parts often needed to be custom-made and fitted for each location.
One of the largest street railway operations, in Brooklyn, New York City, did not have a single grand union. The most extensive surviving street railway system in North America, which has several, is the Toronto streetcar system of the Toronto Transit Commission in Toronto, Canada. The one time Montreal tramways Company or Montreal street railway system also had a number of them, see [1] (in French only) and scroll down to "Topologie du réseau en 1948".
The only surviving grand union in the Southern Hemisphere is in Melbourne, Australia.
