Jacqueline Steiner, who died of pneumonia, aged 94, on 25 Jan. 2019; is best known as being co-author of the song Charlie on the MTA (a version of The Man That Never Returned. Her obituary in The New York Times, published 5 Feb., tells us a lot about the origins of that song as well as about Ms Steiner.

...
Jacqueline Steiner, who died on Jan. 25 at 94, was the lyricist who conjured up poor Charlie early in her singing and songwriting career. She and the song’s co-writer, Bess Lomax Hawes, dashed it off for a Boston mayoral candidate in 1949. They expected it to fade after the election along with their candidate, who received only 1 percent of the vote.

But 10 years later, the folk music group the Kingston Trio picked it up. With a slightly new spin, the trio gave it a second life, and their “At Large” album, with the song, “M.T.A.” (also known as “Charlie on the M.T.A.”), as the opening track, hit No. 1 on the charts.

...
The original version written by Ms. Steiner and Ms. Hawes and based on the tunes of two old folk songs, had a political edge. They wrote it for a progressive candidate named Walter A. O’Brien, who opposed the latest fare increase. Subway riders would pay a dime to get onto a train, but if they transferred to an aboveground streetcar, they had to pay an extra nickel to exit. (The system was so complex that the M.T.A. issued a 15-page booklet with instructions for both riders and subway operators; the agency ended the system after only a few months.)

Charlie, alas, did not have that extra nickel.

His absent-minded wife came down to the station every day, but instead of handing him a nickel, “through the open window she hands Charlie a sandwich as the train comes rumblin’ through.” (Ms. Hawes wrote the sandwich verse, which Ms. Steiner always believed gave the song its punch.)...

Charlie was thus doomed to “ride forever ’neath the streets of Boston / He’s the man who never returned.”

After the election, Mr. O’Brien was deemed a Communist and blacklisted. The clean-cut Kingston Trio, trying to advance their careers in the midst of the McCarthy era, generally avoided overtly political songs. They sanitized the Steiner-Hawes version of “M.T.A.” and changed the name Walter O’Brien to the fictitious George O’Brien.
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[and you can learn a bit more by reading the entire article at the NYT website]