What's the Name of That Book??? discussion

I'm trying to track down a book I signed out & read from the local library in the 80s. Sadly their records don't keep that long. I don't know if the book is from the 80s however but it was modernish at the time; I feel I could say anywhere from 1970 to 1980s written.

I only really remember one scene from the book & every couple years I take a stab at finding it but as time moves on it's getting harder not easier.

The book is a realistic post apocalyptic Earth with no magic or high technology that stood out to my child self; with the remains of present day society having lost their importance for the most part. Could be YA/Teen to General Adult for age rating.

The only scene I remember is a person (pretty sure male but female not out of possibility) is walking through the night or dark woods on a trip somewhere and encounters a train.

Not having encountered vehicles before he views the train's head light as, paraphrased, 'a giant demon's eye hurdling towards him'. He doesn't find out it was a train until later but I can't recall how much later or the scene where its discussed.

It was a standard size read... not a novella but not a back injury waiting to happen either; couple hundred pages or so. I can't recall if it was paper back or hard cover.

Does anything on the 20th Century YA and Middle Grade Science Fiction list look familiar?

Rainbowheart wrote: "Does anything on the 20th Century YA and Middle Grade Science Fiction list look familiar?"

Hard to go by just title; picked out 6 or so that seemed likely; most seem to mention mutants or special powers etc. so discarding went quick.

Could this be the same book Emily is looking for here?

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Any chance this could be Watership Down? They have similar reactions to cars/trains they encounter.

How about Eternity Road? It's set in the US some time after a society-ending disaster. People know about the 'Roadmakers' civilisation but don't understand what all the technology did. A group of people go on a journey to find a hidden library basically. At one point they find a monorail or something that's automated and still working. It has headlights. They think it's a dragon or giant snake or similar.

In "The dream catcher" by Monica Hughes there were remnants of roads left I think, but I don't recall a train.

The Dream Catcher for bookel's suggestion.

So it's not the The Dream Catcher nor Watership Down... far as I can remember everything about the setting was realistic.

The pre-disaster remains are no longer known what they're for, no powers or extra functioning limbs etc. that I can remember.

The Dream Catcher doesn't mention trains at all & the person travelling is definitely human. The Eternity Road sounded about right (and might be one I add to the reading list) but it's not the one.
Where I can I'm borrowing these from either the local library or open library and key word searching them... so Eternity Road is not the one as it doesn't have the scene I remember in it. (Does mention demons & trains but not a train as a demon...)

Emily's book turned out to be The Hollow Land.