Interesting pattern, and not one I'd entirely dismiss. I'm primarily a ghost hunter and EVP man myself, but I've been reading through the BORD (British Organiation for Research into Dogman) reports and there does seem to be a clustering around old industrial corridors - rail lines included.
My theory, for what it's worth: old railway routes often cut through ancient woodland that was never fully cleared, just bisected. If these creatures are real and territorial, those strips of remaining habitat become natural corridors. The rail lines didn't replace the territory, they just carved channels through it.
Also worth considering - and this is where my background comes in - abandoned rail infrastructure generates some genuinely strange acoustic and electromagnetic phenomena. Old iron rails, tunnels, embankments... they can produce infrasound and odd resonance effects. Whether that attracts something, or whether witnesses are experiencing perceptual distortion that makes something ordinary seem monstrous, I honestly couldn't say.
What I'd want to know from anyone who's actually had a sighting near rail lines:
Time of day/night?, Were there any sounds beforehand - low rumbling, animal silence, that sort of thing?, Proximity to water? A lot of rail routes follow river valleys.
I've got a Zoom H6 recorder and a decent kit for field work around Salisbury. If anyone's identified a specific hotspot in southern England I'd genuinely consider doing an overnight. Not holding my breath, mind you - but stranger things have turned out to be real.
