Monthly pass from Ludlow, and a Domino Sugar postcard. Yonkers, just north of Ludlow station, has been the home to a sugar refinery for over 100 years.

Today’s tour of the Hudson Line takes us to another of Yonkers’ railroad stations. Our visit to Ludlow will be relatively short, as there isn’t too much to mention here. The station is located just less than 14 miles from Grand Central, and is the southernmost Hudson Line station in Westchester county. Riverdale station is just south of here, and the main Yonkers station is north. Like many places along the line, the station consists of two outside platforms with four tracks running through the center. While most stations also have a platform overpass, here the elevated Ludlow Street serves as a method to access the other platform. Ticket machines are also located on this road.

CSX at the sugar refinery, just north of Ludlow station, in 2003. They are no longer a customer of CSX. Photo by Michael Foley.

As we’ve seen at other stations on the Hudson Line, the combination of the river and the railroad provided an optimal location for industry to thrive. Over the years many of these industries and factories have slowly disappeared. For over 100 years Yonkers – just north of Ludlow station – has been the home to a sugar refinery, still in operation today. The Yonkers location also serves as the headquarters of American Sugar Refining, Inc. This is one of the few sugar refineries still operating in the northeast, and Brian O’Malley, president of Domino Sugar, considers the railroad an important factor in the longevity of the Yonkers refinery.

That pretty much sums it up for Ludlow, which is one of the few Hudson Line stations not graced by an attractive view of the Hudson River. Next week we’ll be heading further north on the Hudson Line to a station that just might have a nicer view.