In the Meiji era along the Jōban Line, crews reported another train bearing down on their night service, only to blink out just before impact. One engineer, convinced it was a phantom, held speed; a sharp cry—“Gya!”—was heard, and the apparition vanished. At dawn a badger’s corpse was found by the track, and a memorial mound was raised at Kenseiji in Kameari. In Matsuyama, Iyo Province, tales say a tanuki connected to Shinonome Shrine transformed into a locomotive, a story noted by local men of letters. Such accounts recast unfamiliar sights and sounds of railways as the shapeshifting tricks of beasts.