Youth has sighting along abandoned railroad line on edge of West Frankfort witnessed in Franklin County, Illinois

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It was summer, late 70's, I was about 12. I lived a block West from railroad tracks, which ran North/South, and about 1/2 mile North of my home was the edge of a wooded bottomland which is referred to as Middle Fork, which runs into the Big Muddy River to the West, and has an abandoned railroad bed running West/East just inside the woodline. The edges of which were littered with dumped appliances, etc., that the garbage service wouldn't take. I had heard of the reports of the Big Muddy Monster prior but didn't give it alot of thought at the time. Inside the edge of the woodline mentioned there is an abandoned railroad bed (no rails, etc., and as you travel along it becomes raised to a point of about 10 feet at the end where it runs into a field and drops abruptly) which "us kids" used as a bicycle / motorcycle trail. One day nearing dusk I was riding my bike through the neighborhood and decided to go down the trail. On the trail you could either go North into the woods or South back...