Really interesting pattern you've picked up on there. I've been going down a bit of a rabbit hole with this lately and the railroad correlation does seem to keep coming up, especially in American reports.
My thinking is it could tie into a few things:
Old infrastructure = undisturbed corridors - railroad lines, especially disused ones, often cut through dense woodland that hasn't been developed. Perfect for something large to move through undetected., Liminal spaces theory - there's a school of thought that Dogman (and BEK encounters actually, which is more my usual area) tend to cluster around transitional or ". In-between". Spaces. Abandoned railways fit that perfectly., Reporting bias? - people walk old rail trails for recreation, so there are simply more witnesses in those areas compared to deep forest.
Down here in Cornwall we don't get classic Dogman reports but we do have the Black Dog / Yeth Hound folklore which is weirdly similar in some descriptions. And those sightings historically cluster around old trackways and ley lines too, which makes me wonder if there's some broader geographical principle at work.
Has anyone mapped the sighting coordinates against old OS maps or railroad databases? Feels like that's the next logical step. I'd love to see someone do a proper overlay - even something basic in Google Maps would be a start.
Do the sightings tend to be near active lines or specifically decommissioned ones? That detail seems important.
