Interesting pattern - I've been noticing this too, actually. Most of the well-documented Dogman reports from the American Midwest seem to cluster around disused rail corridors, and I don't think that's purely coincidental.
My thinking is that abandoned rail lines essentially function as wildlife highways - long, relatively undisturbed corridors cutting through terrain that's otherwise developed. If something large and genuinely unknown is out there, those routes offer cover, prey movement patterns, and minimal human interference. Makes biological sense.
What I find compelling is the crossover with liminal space theory. Rail lines - especially decommissioned ones - occupy this strange threshold between civilisation and wilderness. There's a decent body of anecdotal evidence suggesting cryptid and paranormal activity clusters around liminal environments generally. I've seen similar clustering in my own EVP work near old industrial sites in Norfolk, though obviously that's a different phenomenon.
The Beast of Bray Road encounters had a rail connection that doesn't get discussed enough, and several of the Dogman Database submissions from Wisconsin and Michigan follow old logging rail routes almost precisely.
A few questions worth throwing out:
Are UK researchers seeing anything similar near old branch lines? There are some genuinely strange reports from ex-rail corridors in the Welsh Marches and northern England, Has anyone cross-referenced sighting maps against OS or historical rail survey data properly?
Would love to see someone do a proper GIS overlay on this. The pattern deserves more rigorous treatment than it typically gets on these threads. Anyone with sighting data from British locations particularly, drop it below.
