It was only a short trip (about 16 minutes) from Ossining to Ardsley-on-Hudson, but it turned out to be more eventful than I thought. I sat through the entire ride holding my ticket, but nobody came to collect it. As the train pulled into Ardsley station, I put the ticket into my bag and started to leave. I was halfway through the door, when a young, uniformed woman turned up. She didn’t say anything, but it was clear that she was there to collect my ticket. Now I had a bit of a problem. Do I step back into the train, search my bag for the ticket, give it to her and risk the door closing and me being taken to someplace I didn’t want to go to? Or do I step onto the platform, turn back to her, and if the door is still open, give her the ticket? I decided on the latter option. But I was a bit flustered and didn’t notice that there was a gap of a couple of inches between the level of the train, and the level of the platform. Well, as I stepped out of the train my foot clipped the platform and down I went onto the platform. I was immediately surrounded a number of the train crew asking me if I needed medical attention. After a brief period while I recovered from the shock, they helped me get up. This was just as well as it seemed that at some point salt had been sprinkled on the platform and over time this had turned into a fine powder. I didn’t fancy my chances of getting up unassisted without slipping. I checked myself out and found that, apart from a few slight grazes on the hands and feet, I was fine. I was actually more concerned about damage to my camera, but it was fine. So, I told them I was fine, and the train departed. The female ticket collector didn’t ask me for the ticket.

Now I had to decide whether to continue my walk or wait for the next train back to Ossining and home. I decided that I was in good enough shape to continue with the walk, so off I went.

But before I continue a few words about Ardsley Station.

According to Wikipedia:

The station was originally part of the Ardsley Casino Clubhouse, a country club created through the support of some of the most notable and successful men in the US including Jay Gould, Cornelius Vanderbilt (New York Central entrepreneur) and John Pierpont Morgan. The Casino was built overlooking the Hudson River and besides the station, had a private dock to accommodate the yachts of members. The Ardsley Racquet and Swim Club, an offshoot established in 1927, inherited the property in 1935, and the casino was closed in 1936. The site was replaced by the Hudson House Apartments. Even with all the changes, the original mid-1890s New York Central Railroad depot remained intact. As with many stations along the Hudson Division, the New York Central merged with the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1968 to form Penn Central Railroad. The 1970 bankruptcy of Penn Central forced it to turn service over to the Metropolitan Transit Authority ()MTA, which continued through the time it was taken over by Conrail in 1976, and then by Metro-North Railroad in 1983. While there is no official station house, Metro-North does maintain a small two-story brick depot, housing the northbound waiting room, ticket machines, and the United States Post Office for ZIP Code 10503.

The crossover ramp to southbound or New York City-bound trains was inside the depot until 2006, when Metro-North razed the ramp and built one a few steps to the south, with a higher clearance for projected double-deck trains. At that time new, longer platforms were installed on both sides of the tracks. On February 1, 2010, a sanitation truck smashed into the historic pedestrian bridge leading from the station house to the Hudson House Apartments. The bridge was never rebuilt.

In December 2017, the Village Board of Irvington, which has jurisdiction over the station, passed local legislation which expanded the types of business which would be allowed to be situated in the station’s building, while still prohibiting fast-food restaurants, drive-through type businesses and businesses which produced “odor, dust, noise, smoke, gas, fumes or radiation”.

The station was used as a location for the 2002 film Unfaithful, starring Richard Gere and Diane Lane. It also figured in the setting of the 1984 film Falling in Love. Emily Blunt’s character Rachel takes the train out of Ardsley-on-Hudson in the 2016 film The Girl on the Train.

Here’s how the station looked in its heyday – with the casino in the background.

Taken with a Sony RX10 IV