I'll meet you down at the trestle

GIN: Trains. Yeah. Huge, sweatin', steamin', oil spittin' promises when I was a girl. Always taking someone away, never bringing someone back. I couldn't get used to it.

This is a line from Act I Scene III of The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek. Gin says it to Dalton when he is trying to impress her with Pace's knowledge of trains. This conversation between mother and son is intercut with Dray's hand shadows portrayed by the often silent father character. The hand shadows are quite similar to Gin's idea of trains: something that you can see, but cannot touch or truly experience.
For my dramaturgy report, I researched and presented history and facts surrounding trains and trestles, especially those in Louisville and throughout Kentucky. In my applying this information to the play, I assumed the setting of the play somewhere in Appalachia.
The L&N railroad began extending its line to Eastern Kentucky towards the end of the 19th Century. As soon as the idea of trains and railroads became comfortable with these people, the Great Depression hit. Trains in Eastern Kentucky stopped transporting people, but continued to transport goods, like coal. Here is a (long) quote from the book, History of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad by Maury Klein:

"The elimination of trains and especially the abandonment of mileage evoked a similar anguish that extended beyond the L&N family into dozens of the communities served by the company. The accelerating rate of abandonments symbolized a striking reversal in the history of American railroads. The high tide of expansion had passed and was now ebbing slowly back. With its receding line went the hopes and ambitions of thousands who inhabited the areas no longer served. Usually the L&N's departure merely confirmed that any significant industry or resources were dried up. In this reverse process the railroad's leaving symbolized decay just as its coming had suggested prosperity. To these people, already crushed in spirit, abandonment often connoted desolation in more than the literal sense."

One of the most valuable books I found is called Trains, Trestles, and Tunnels, by Lou Harshaw. There are so many amazing pictures of trains, traintracks, tunnels, and trestles taken throughout Southern Appalachia, as well as a basic history and timeline of railroads in the South. There is one amazing picture of a trestle coming out of a tunnel, with a girl standing on top of it. Imagine Pace.
And finally, I found two songs that I think capture some of the overall mood of the show. I like putting music in my research, because it evokes a very specific emotion.

Train Song by Vashti Bunyan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AGD78mWcss
Trestle by Cletus Romp http://www.myspace.com/cletusromp