REGIONAL – Dream the first: a sprawling network of rail trails, all over Ulster County and the entire Hudson Valley and Catskills, allowing intrepid hikers and bicyclists to travel from say, the hamlet of Wallkill up to Kingston, or from Kingston down to Wurtsboro, or perhaps from Kingston up to Bellayre, deep in the Catskills. Ulster County Executive Mike Hein likes this dream. He has spoken of "a world class trail" that would run from the Ashokan reservoir to the Walkway Over The Hudson linking both Poughkeepsie to Highland.

Dream the second: the Catskill Mountain Railroad, a 38 mile remnant of the old railroad system that crisscrossed our region with lines in the late 19th century. The line hails back to the Ulster & Delaware Railroad, linked to the Rondout & Oswego and chartered in 1866, which reached Shokan in 1869 and Phoenicia in 1870. The owners of the railroad and a swarm of volunteers have worked on bringing those tracks back since 1991, when Ulster County signed a 25 year lease agreement with the railroad to allow it to run trains full of tourists. Before that the railroad was restricted to just three miles of track between Phoenicia and Mount Pleasant.

Hein thinks this dream is outdated, even over. Hein would like to rip up the tracks and turn the line into that rail trail up to Bellayre. He laid out a plan to do just that in 2012.

Thus the clash of dreams — the Catskill Mountain Rail Trail would open the way for hikers and bikers to access a right of way along the Ashokan Reservoir, currently closed to foot traffic, and so claim supporters and bring as many as 140,000 people to the trail each year. The estimate for the money they would leave behind: $3.1 million.

In November 2013, a Ulster County Supreme Court Judge Richard Mott allowed the railroad until November 29 to come up with a $75,000 bond to be used for repairs and demolition of the Big Indian trestle bridge when their lease runs out in 2016. Hein had requested a $150,000 bond, but Mott said that number was based on nothing but "unsupported hearsay." With the lesser target to aim for, the railroad found the money just in time and thus won the right to continue its holiday ride season, running slow trains up along the old rail tracks in the Catskills and down around Kingston.

Whatever else happens, however, it seems unlikely that Ulster County will renew the railroad's lease come 2016, and that in the end the rail trail dream will prevail.

And this is just a final part of the growing movement to turn railroad rights of way into trails for hiking and bicycling.

In the Rondout Valley, that movement has seen funding, and work, on a growing rail trail line down from Kingston towards Ellenville and beyond. Marbletown's long been on board and this fall the entire endeavor received a boost when Rochester councilwoman Lynn Archer won election to the Ulster County Legislature. A big part of her campaign was concerned with the economic power of rail trails and hikers.

In addition, bits and pieces continue to be added to the existing trail in the Rondout Valley. On December 6 a bridge was opened over Rest Plaus Road in Marbletown, linking the northern part of the Marbletown O&W rail trail to the southern side, which continues to the border with Rochester. Another bridge, over Kripplebush Creek. is in the works in Marbletown, too. Work continues to connect the northern end of the trail north of Hurley all the way into Kingston.

In Wawarsing, Lenny Distel, who takes over as town supervisor in a couple of weeks, says he has been thinking about the rail trail and connections for a long time.

"We definitely want to connect everything up. That's the key to the rail trail," he said this week. "So you can go from Kingston all the way down to Wurtsboro. There are some tricky points, though."

Distel points to Route 44-55 in Kerhonkson.

"That will be dangerous for people to cross. Drivers come down off the mountain at considerable speed," he noted. "Of course, signs can be put up, but the best solution would be a tunnel under the road. But, that won't happen anytime soon considering how expensive it would be." Another thing he brought up were needed state approvals.

"Go down the Berme Road by Unity Hall to Port Ben Bridge and then over that to the Vernoy Kill," Distel noted. "That's where we're going to have put a bridge over the kill, and that will need approvals from the DEC."

At the other end of Wawarsing, though, Distel sees hope of a big advance for the trail.

"Michael Treanor has said he'll give us an easement for five miles of rail trail over the Nevele property, though that depends on the Nevele getting the casino license," he pointed out.

Talk about a big long project in the works...