Something occurred to me after taking this photo today on the bridge over the railway in my village.

Here is a ready-made illustration of something the children in the primary school just a few yards away or the secondary school just a bit further along the road towards the next village have to learn about in their maths lessons.

The teachers could walk the class onto the bridge and simply point and say “parallel lines”.

And the kids would go home confused, saying “But I thought they were called tracks”.