New York City - Day trip to West Point?

I'll be in NY for a few days next month and i'd love to go and see West Point. The best way to get there by public transport seems to be shortline bus, their website has a return ticket including WP tour for $44.

Have any of you guys ever done this trip/ does it sound like a good idea?

WPMA is a great day trip for anyone visiting NYC and wants to get away from the hustle of the city.

I used to live not far from there near the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge and would go to West Point to watch the dress parades and then head over to the football stadium to catch a game. But since this is not football season the museum is a great choice to spend some time there. Plan on spending about 4 hours there.

If you have time try to walk around the grounds of the campus, one of the most beautiful schools in the world.

According to their website you can only go in as part of a guided tour. Which seems slightly odd considering that you can wander around USNA pretty much at will. Mind you I suppose USMA is harder to police being that much bigger

I'll be in NY for a few days next month and i'd love to go and see West Point. The best way to get there by public transport seems to be shortline bus, their website has a return ticket including WP tour for $44.

Have any of you guys ever done this trip/ does it sound like a good idea?Sounds like a great day trip. I went to their website and found a roundtrip fare for $30.50.

http://www.coachusa.com/info/shortline/ss.toolkit.nycfares.asp

According to their website you can only go in as part of a guided tour. Which seems slightly odd considering that you can wander around USNA pretty much at will. Mind you I suppose USMA is harder to police being that much bigger


There is always some confusion, when it comes to West Point. Let me explain:

"West Point" is a US Military Base, which happens to house the United States Military Academy. There are also more than 5000 residents of the base, which houses the West Point Mint, the 3rd largest Gold storage facility in the United States. (Behind #2 Ft. Knox, and #1, the New York Federal Reserve Bank Headquarters in East Rutherford, NJ) -- Bet you didn't know that :-)

I would presume some other military units operate out of West Point as well.

Absolutely useless, darn near off-topic fact:


The board game Monopoly has four railroads (B&O, Reading, Pennsylvania, and ShortLine.) The first three are named for actual railroads, the last, ShortLine is named for the Short Line bus.

Absolutely useless, darn near off-topic fact:


The board game Monopoly has four railroads (B&O, Reading, Pennsylvania, and ShortLine.) The first three are named for actual railroads, the last, ShortLine is named for the Short Line bus.

Wow, very interesting. I take the Shortline bus every day commuting back and forth.

Absolutely useless, darn near off-topic fact:


The board game Monopoly has four railroads (B&O, Reading, Pennsylvania, and ShortLine.) The first three are named for actual railroads, the last, ShortLine is named for the Short Line bus.That's news. What is your source? Link?

The Monopoly game's Short Line isn't named for a real-life railroad. Although the game's inventor is reputed to have had a small inter-urban tram line in mind when he named the game property, the term short line applies to any independent railroad with track covering a short distance or small region. While many such railroads have been bought by larger concerns or simply gone out of business, they are far from extinct. Today the non-profit American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) has over 400 member railroads which together operate 29% of the railroad tracks in America.http://modeltrains.about.com/od/railroads/tp/monopoly_railroads.htm

The board game Monopoly has four railroads (B&O, Reading, Pennsylvania, and ShortLine.) The first three are named for actual railroads, the last, ShortLine is named for the Short Line bus.

Wikipedia disagrees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_%28game%29#cite_ref-p23_10-0) (and cites a source). And as Analise pointed out, "short line" is a generic term for a type of railroad.

http://www.indepthinfo.com/monopoly/history.shtml
http://richard_wilding.tripod.com/history.htm
http://www.baltimoresun.com/travel/bal-bab-ac-monopoly,0,1894878.story
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/06/nyregion/pass-go-collect-millions.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm


All my life, I have lived 150 yards from a ShortLine bus stop (and about 3 miles from their headquarters) I don't have the source where I learned of the fact, but have provided a few for you above.

I'll be in NY for a few days next month and i'd love to go and see West Point. The best way to get there by public transport seems to be shortline bus, their website has a return ticket including WP tour for $44.

Have any of you guys ever done this trip/ does it sound like a good idea?

I did trip in 2007 for a meeting and it's a beautiful campus to wander around. I took Metro-North (http://www.mta.info/mnr/) to Peekskill, then a taxi from there (http://www.usma.edu/directions/). I don't recall the fare, unfortunately, but the taxi ride is about 20 min each way, so it's not insignificant, plus the Metro-North Off-Peak one-way fare is currently $10.75. Sounds to me like the bus is probably a good deal.

According to their website you can only go in as part of a guided tour. Which seems slightly odd considering that you can wander around USNA pretty much at will. Mind you I suppose USMA is harder to police being that much bigger


As a graduate of USMA, I'd suggest taking a guided tour if you have the time. A lot of our history was made there. The Corps of Cadets will probably be going into thier spring parade schedule after Easter. If you can go up during the week, the crowds will dfinetely be less, and you can probably catch a retreat parade.

The parade schedule isn't posted yet, but here is a link to the page it will be on:
http://www.usma.edu/uscc/corpsofcdts/cdtreviewschedule.htm

There is always some confusion, when it comes to West Point. Let me explain:

"West Point" is a US Military Base, which happens to house the United States Military Academy. There are also more than 5000 residents of the base, which houses the West Point Mint, the 3rd largest Gold storage facility in the United States. (Behind #2 Ft. Knox, and #1, the New York Federal Reserve Bank Headquarters in East Rutherford, NJ) -- Bet you didn't know that :-)

I would presume some other military units operate out of West Point as well.

Several years ago I took a tour of the NY (Maiden Lane location) Federal Reserve Bank, and they noted that that location held the largest "hoard" of gold. Per their web site, they note that people on a tour get to see the gold vault. Was some (most?) of the gold moved to NJ?
[PS: I signed up to take a tour in late May--I'll report back if I don't see any gold.:D]
Follow-up:
I finally did take the tour of Federal Reserve Bank at Maiden Lane in Manhattan--the gold is still intact 5 stories underground (none of the gold has been moved to NJ):)
PS: The tour guide spends a lot of time describing the function of the FRB and mentioning other economic info--when you finally get to see the vault, you don't see much of the "hoard" that's locked in the various storage areas allotted to each of the many countries which keep it there. The tours have a small number of people (around 15), the group I was on had several children (who must have been bored)... [On my previous visit, it must have been an "audit" day, and I did see lots of gold ingots.^]