Interesting thread, though I'll admit cryptozoology isn't really my main area - I tend to focus more on aerial phenomena and ground markings. That said the railroad angle genuinely caught my attention because old rail corridors often follow ley line alignments, and I've noticed the same pattern when mapping certain UFO flap areas in Yorkshire. The infrastructure tends to follow the landscape in ways that reveal something about the underlying geography.
The question I'd ask is whether these sightings cluster around active lines or specifically abandoned ones. Derelict rail corridors create genuine wildlife corridors too, so theres a mundane explanation that should probably be ruled out first before we go further. But if the pattern holds even accounting for that, it starts to get more interesting.
Anyone done any actual mapping on this? Coordinates, dates, that sort of thing. Would be worth overlaying against geological surveys to see if there's something structural underneath those routes. Happy to help with that kind of analysis if someone has teh raw data.