HAVERHILL — It sounds simple.

The city has enough money to buy land along the Merrimack River. Everyone agrees the property would make a good hiking and biking trail.

Even leaders in neighboring Groveland think it's a good idea, and would like the trail to extend to their town.

There's one problem. The title search could prove difficult, city officials said.

Andrew Herlihy, aide to Mayor James Fiorentini, said before Haverhill can buy the land, the city must resolve title issues that are likely to exist.

"There could be extensive title issues," Herlihy said. "In some cases the title is a little complicated as it's not your typical land purchase. It's been railroad property since the 1850s and the titles are probably in some dusty old books somewhere."

Haverhill has about $500,000 in state and private grant money to buy three parcels of land on the Bradford side of the river. The city hopes to buy the land from its owner, Pan Am Railways, but first the title search and other real estate reviews must be done.

Herlihy said he is confident Haverhill will avoid having to return the grant money to the state, which would happen if the city failed to complete the sale by the end of the year.

"We have some of the state money sitting in an account and we are working on initiating a purchase and sale agreement that our legal team is now looking at," he said. "Very soon we hope to organize a site walk of the property by city department heads to see if they have any concerns about the purchase."

Groveland Planning Board Chairman Walter Sorenson Jr. said his town would love to see a new walking and biking path.

"We're trying to get people off the streets," he said. "I think it's a great thing for any community."

He said Groveland tried to buy the section of railway that runs through town 12 years ago, but had problems with the track owners.

"Groveland is always looking at developing recreational areas, trail walks and pedestrian areas," Sorenson said. "The problem we ran across was when we had contacted the track owner, B&M Railroad. They came up with an interesting response, that they planned to reactivate the track. And we have not heard from them since."

The rail bed is opposite downtown, on the Bradford side of the river, from just east of the Comeau Bridge. The land runs east to the Basiliere Bridge.

The city also is negotiating with Pan Am to buy another six parcels of connected rail bed from the Basiliere Bridge east to the Haverhill Paperboard Corp. property, which is near the Crescent Yacht Club. The full stretch from Comeau Bridge to Haverhill Paperboard is about 1.1 miles.

The railway is part of the old Georgetown branch rail line, which was built in 1851. The line runs from Haverhill, through Groveland and on to Georgetown.

"It's conceivable that we could link the trail to Groveland and even Georgetown because that's where the rail went," Herlihy said. "That's a long-range trail vision the Merrimack Valley Planning Commission is working on."

><p>

><p>

Rail Trail trials

A complicated title search of the property.

A deadline of the end of the year to make the purchase or return state grant money.

Groveland's failure 12 years ago to buy old railroad bed land. The town would welcome an attempt to extend the trail from Haverhill to Groveland.