Genuinely interesting thread, I came across this pattern a few months back while going down a rabbit hole on American dogman cases. I'm more of a BEK person myself but the railroad connection kept popping up and it stuck with me.
My thinking is that old rail lines basically function as long corridors through wilderness - animals and apparently whatever these things are would naturally follow them. Theres also the theory that certain locations have residual energy or electromagnetic properties tied to the iron in the tracks, which some researchers have linked to paranormal hotspots more broadly.
What I'd want to know is whether the sightings cluster near active lines or specifically abandoned ones, because that distinction seems important. Abandoned tracks tend to run through much more isolated terrain and have been reclaimed by vegetation which would offer cover for something large moving around.
Has anyone actually mapped this out properly? Like plotted reported sighting coordinates against historical rail maps? That feels like the kind of analysis that could either confirm the pattern or show its just coincidence due to the sheer volume of old rail infrastructure across the US.
