The little engine that could: A Delaware & Ulster Railroad engine pulls into the Belleayre depot on Thursday, October 3. Aboard, left to right: Donald Bishop, executive director of the A. Lindsay & Olive B. O'Connor Foundation; Dave Riordan, executive director of DURR; and Nicholas VanSteenburg, maintenance worker for DURR. Photo by Lissa Harris. 

It's a sound that hasn't been heard on Belleayre for more than a decade: The chug-chug-chug of a railroad engine. 

On the brilliant autumn afternoon of Thursday, October 3, the Delaware & Ulster Railroad (DURR), a nonprofit railroad company that runs tourist trains between Arkville and Roxbury, sent one of its trains east from Arkville. Without much fanfare, the 1962 ALCO RS-36 pulled up to the little wooden platform on Route 28 in Highmount, at the base of the Belleayre Ski Center. 

Above: Georgianna Lepke of Neversink passes the CWC gavel to Michael Triolo of Stamford. Photo courtesy of the Catskill Watershed Corporation.

The board of the Catskill Watershed Corporation, a nonprofit governed mostly by elected officials from the New York City watershed region, voted Stamford town supervisor Michael Triolo as its new president at the board's regular meeting on Tuesday, October 1. 

Triolo takes over from longtime CWC president Georgianna Lepke, town council member and former supervisor of the town of Neversink. Lepke has sold her Neversink home and is moving to Florida, according to a statement released by the CWC.

In the statement, Triolo praised Lepke's leadership. 

"I will have to fill some huge shoes. If I can do half the job Georgie’s done, I’ll be happy," Triolo said. "And if at any point I lose sight of the fact that this is a regional organization, representing and helping people in Delaware, Sullivan, Schoharie, Greene and Ulster Counties, you let me know."

Above: Postmaster Brenda Finch-Hasay checks out the damage to her car, behind the Arkville post office on Monday. Photos by Lissa Harris.

An intense rainstorm that blew through Arkville around 2pm on Monday afternoon inflicted at least one casualty: The windshield of postmaster Brenda Finch-Hasay's car.

Although Finch-Hasay was sitting inside the post office just a few feet away from where her car was parked, she didn't hear the crunch of a tree hitting her car over the sound of the howling wind, she said. It was only when firefighters appeared outside the window that she realized what had happened.

"That wind came through, and it was pouring," she said. "I look out the window and the firemen are walking out back." 

Waterfall on the Esopus Creek in Saugerties. Photo by Flickr user Sonja Stark; published under Creative Commons license.

By state government standards, it's a small document: Just 34 pages. But to Lower Esopus residents, who have been waiting a long time for it, a newly-released consent order between the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) will land with a mighty thud.