Carter Roth gave an affectionate slap to the rusty side of the old X-1 crane and said, "I never thought I'd see the day when I'd be working on this beauty.

"We're like a couple of old survivors."

At least one of them will be getting a face-lift. It's hard to ignore the 79-ton piece of history that was recently deposited at the 32-mile marker of the Montour Trail, but for now, it's not the prettiest.

Members of the Montour Railroad Historical Society helped rescue the crane, which once operated not far from its new resting place in Peters, Washington County. Ticketed for demolition, its steel parts were to be sold for scrap. The 61-year-old machine was saved, however, after society members scrambled in late summer to bring it back to Western Pennsylvania.

The diesel-powered crane rests on the property of Tom Robinson's TAR Storage facility.

"The Montour Railroad only had two cranes, and this replaced the first one," said society president Bryan Seip, of McMurray.

The original, which ran on steam, was replaced by the X-1, which operated from 1947 to 1983, when the Montour Railroad went out of business.

Such cranes were used, among other chores, to lift heavy containers at tipples, the facilities where coal was loaded from the mine to railroad cars.

Mr. Roth, a master mechanic, worked on the Montour Railroad from 1957 to 1960, and remembers the crane in its prime.

The machine was painted black in those days, with white trim, the diamond-shaped Montour Railroad logo on display, and bright yellow paint marking safe hand-holds and footing along its sides.

Restoration efforts will eventually bring back the original paint colors, but for now, the crane's supporters have to squint a bit to see past all that rust and dried grease.

"No way we get it painted this year," said Mr. Seip, who said immediate goals include a little bit of sandblasting, but mostly work to winterize the crane by closing up window spaces and patching holes.

Mr. Seip is running out of time, too. As a television director for FSN, his work schedule is tied into the Penguins' season, starting Saturday.

A ribbing-cutting ceremony will be held Oct. 18 to officially open a new segment of the Montour Trail. Visitors can catch a glimpse of the crane but it won't be show-worthy.

The boom alone will require intricate attention to its lattice-work steel sides. Fixing up the innards of the crane's cabin has required more than a little elbow grease.

"The thing is, when you're dealing with anything involving railroads, everything is big. You can't just do it with a set of pliers," Mr. Seip said.

The society is content to wait until spring. Members say they are just relieved to have saved the crane; the restoration work will come.

"It worked out perfectly. It's kind of home," said Mr. Roth, a resident of Eighty-Four, Washington County.

The chance to save X-1 occurred abruptly, when someone alerted the organization to its scrap-heap status in August.

"We had a window of two weeks," said Mr. Seip. "Our group is too new for us to have 501(c)3 [nonprofit] status, and we've always had a good relationship with the Montour Trail people, so we asked if they would, essentially, be our sponsors."

The crane's owners -- Ohio Central Railroad System -- agreed to donate it for historical purposes.

"We gave them kind of a shelter, in a sense, using our 501(c)3. We accepted the crane and passed it to them," said Peter Kohnke, president of the Montour Trail Council.

"It wasn't our generosity, but really, the generosity of Century Steel Erectors."

The Dravosburg company took apart the crane, trucked it to its final site near the old Montour Mine No. 4 shaft off Valleybrook Road, then assembled it, all at no charge. The process took two days over Labor Day weekend.