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Charlotte Greenwood, episode 440808, "Train Ride to New York", via OTRCat's compilation of railroad-themed radio programs.

Charlotte Greenwood is a suburban housewife who is tall and thin. That's the central joke in this 1940s radio sitcom. In this episode, Mrs. Greenwood attempts to go to New York by train. The wartime train is overcrowded. Other people jostle her and insult each other. A golf bag falls off an overhead rack, imprisoning her. (Because she's so skinny. Get it?) The conductor is clueless. She gets off the train and tries to make her way to a different train. A helpful railroad employee gives her a ride on a maintenance car. She bumps her head on an overpass. And so on and so on. The best part of the show is the Pepsodent advertisement, which has a catchy jingle.

The most interesting thing about the episode, from a historical perspective, is the depiction of wartime passenger trains as crowded and unpleasant. This sounds plausible given the existence of gasoline and rubber rations for the civilian population and the fact that the railroads, after struggling through the depression of the 1930s, were stretched to capacity to handle the surge of wartime traffic during 1941-1945. There's even a public service announcement at the end urging listeners to avoid all unnecessary train trips, which suggests that the entire program may have been intended as a piece of wartime psychological conditioning to help reduce civilian use of railroad service.

Unfortunately, a good many people who experienced such overcrowded and slow service during the war learned the lesson too well. They permanently associated all rail travel with such conditions, and stayed away for good after the war.