In North America a "milk train" was a mixed (passenger and freight) train which typically ran in the early hours of the morning, calling at just about every station to pick up fresh milk from local dairy farms to convey it to the city. It was a notoriously slow train because of the frequent stops and the delays involved in shuffling and loading the milk cans at each station.
In the UK the 'milk-train' is the name for getting in aplications for graduate opportunities. You get them in early like the milk train. In the context of the saying 'the milk train doesn't stop here anymore.' We mean a town is on the decline. When the milk train no longer serviced a town, it was a sign that there wasn't enough business there.
'The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore' is the name of a play penned by acclaimed playwright Tennessee Williams. It saw its debut in the year 1962 in Italy, at the Festival dei Due Mondi. The first time it was produced and enacted in America was in the year 1963, in the month of January. It did not prove very successful, running only sixty-nine shows in the city of New York. The play did not get favourable reviews as well.
The play later served as the adaptation for the 1968 movie, Boom, with additional writing aid provided by Gore Vidal and starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.
The setting of the play is Italy and the protagonists of the play include a rich aging woman, and a youth who was caught by her for trespassing on her property.
