Honestly this is something I've been thinking about for a while. There's a stretch of old disused railway line not too far from where I am in Cheshire and I've had a couple of mates mention hearing something big moving through the undergrowth nearby at night - never seen anything solid but the accounts are consistent enough that I've started paying attention.
My working theory is that the corridors themselves act almost like wildlife highways - long strips of overgrown, relatively undisturbed land cutting through areas that would otherwise be heavily developed. Makes sense that something large and reclusive would use them to move around without much human contact.
I've been cross-referencing a few US sighting databases (Dogman Encounters Radio has logged quite a few) and there does seem to be a pattern around old rail lines, particularly in the Midwest. Whether that's because the creature actively prefers them or just because that's where fewer people are, I'm not sure.
A few questions worth digging into:
Are the sightings more concentrated near active lines or derelict ones?, Is there a water source nearby in most cases? (Railways often follow river valleys), Time of year - any seasonal clustering?
Would be genuinely interested if anyone here has mapped this properly. Has anyone tried overlaying sighting reports onto old OS maps or something like Google Earth? Seems like the kind of spatial analysis that could actually reveal something meaningful rather than just vibes-based pattern recognition.
Anyone else noticed this, or got sightings near similar infrastructure?
