Restoring something old to bygone glory can be more difficult than building it from scratch. Just ask those who restore antique automobiles. Ask anyone who's restored a Victorian house.

		Seldom Seem, David Templeton's whimsical perspective on life and times in and around Washington County, appears weekly in Washington Sunday.

Better yet, ask the folks at the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum.

The Chartiers museum, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, will roll out a restored Philadelphia trolley car at 11 a.m. Saturday in a public ceremony, with stunning results. Red Arrow Car 14 looks as shiny, sleek and sassy as it did in 1949, when it rolled off the St. Louis Car Co.'s assembly line.

But restoration proved painstaking: Six years, 12,000 man-hours of labor, donations and in-kind contributions from 33 companies along with private and public grants. The cost, had volunteers been paid, would have been $500,000.

Along the way, the museum dodged more obstacles than an opossum crossing an eight-lane interstate. What started out as a junk trolley, riddled with rot and rust, turned into an epic adventure requiring creative chutzpah, trolley know-how and some serious arm-twisting.

As such, the rollout of Car 14 marks a new era for the museum and its collection of 45 trolley cars, which includes the Streetcar Named Desire from New Orleans and Pittsburgh's only two existing yellow cars.

Along with the restored trolley, the museum will unveil Saturday a half-mile portion of track that includes "the McClane Loop," which has been under construction for three years.

Later this year, it will open a 28,000-square-foot display building to showcase 30 trolleys. The museum also is finalizing plans to build a visitors' center near the new display building.

"It's been 50 years and the museum really is hitting its stride," Executive Director Scott Becker said, crediting volunteers, public grants and private contributions for the success. "This was a community project with a capital 'C.' It's amazing how all the different players came together to make this possible."

Before World War II, a group of Philadelphia trolley company presidents, known as the Presidents Conference Committee, came up with a radical redesign for trolleys to lure new customers. It opted for a streamlined, light-weight trolley with eye-catching color schemes.

The maroon, cream, silver and black exterior gives way to an Art Deco interior with contrasting light, dark and bluish greens. Becker calls it "lime Jell-O parfait."

Car 14 was 10 tons lighter than its 1926 predecessor and was welded together rather than riveted, replacing the boxy look with a more bullet-like appearance.

Tony DeSensi, 81, of Baldwin Borough, said the trolley was a beauty, and he should know. He worked 44 years repairing trolleys and overhead wires for Pittsburgh Railways, then the Port Authority of Allegheny County. Since his retirement in 1985, he's lent his expertise to the museum as a volunteer.

"It was not the best car ever built, but it was the prettiest," he said.

From 1949 to 1954, Car 14 ran a 19-mile route from Philadelphia to West Chester and, as such, represented the last of interurban trolleys. The trolley was retired in 1982.

When the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, known as SEPTA, donated the trolley to the museum in 1992, it looked as though it would be more at home in the junk yard.

But 35 volunteers, coupled with Becker's expertise in raising money and recruiting corporate sponsors, provided the kiss that transformed metal beast into radiant beauty.

Volunteers stripped it down to the metal frame and found structural deterioration throughout. Most replacement parts for a 55-year-old trolley are unavailable in an age of computers, plastic and maglevs.

So the only way to repair it came via "reverse engineering" -- taking an old part and figuring out how to remake it. That included even the grease, which no longer is produced, forcing the museum to find a company to produce a similar grade.

A volunteer machinist made many parts at the museum.

Of 35 volunteers who worked on the project, the key was Justin Skrbin, 22, of Millvale, who, at 15, took on the challenge of restoring Car 14.

In six years, Skrbin taught himself to weld and learned how every system worked, including the web of electrical lines, plumbing, woodworking, painting and bodywork. He developed such thorough knowledge of Car 14 that the museum hired him as a part-time contractor to help complete it.

Adding to difficulties is the fact Car 14 is double-ended, with two separate operating systems so it can travel either direction.

"He did excellent work on this car," DiSensi said of Skrbin. "We've got a lot of talent at this museum."

And, luckily, Wabtec, a Westinghouse successor, had old trolley parts available which it donated at cost. Industrial Gasket & Shim in Chartiers reproduced the stainless steel windshield frame with a laser cutter.

Becker found the R.C. Munson Rubber Co,. of Ohio, which made rubber flooring that matched the original. Volunteers reupholstered every seat. They also had American Glass and Mirror Co., of Washington, reproduce odd-sized windshield glass to fit the stainless steel frames. The wooden doors were rebuilt to grade. Trans-Lite, of Connecticut, the original company, produced new marker light domes for the trolley's front and back.

Becker persuaded 33 companies to provide donations or in-kind contributions, including neighbors Industrial Gasket & Shim, X-Mark Industries and Rockwell Automation-Reliance Electric.

"In a way, we can say the car has been remanufactured," Becker said. "Every component was replaced, down to the last nut and bolt."

Charlie Fife of Fife Moving and Storage in Chartiers serves on the museum board of directors. His company made deliveries and picked up parts nationwide. Becker, he said, is persistent.

"I told him if he needed anything to give me a call. That was a mistake. The phone never stopped ringing."

More than six busy years later, Car 14 shines and swaggers with amazing results.

Going for a test ride, one gets a feel for what customers experienced 55 years ago with the bright interior and smooth, rock-a-bye sway of a trolley breezing down the tracks upward of 50 mph.

It even has old-fashioned air conditioning: "That's when you open all the windows," Becker said.

Restoration of Car 14 has the museum on a roll and on track. It has given the museum a fresh jolt of electricity, among other appropriate trolley metaphors.

"The pay is tremendous -- the satisfaction of taking something that is thrown out, worn out, and the pride of restoring it back to its former glory so the public can enjoy it," Becker said.