One of the first RIPTA trolleys to be refurbished is displayed in Providence recently. Aside from replacing the natural gas-fueled engine with a diesel plant, at left, the overhaul included new electrical and suspension systems.

The Providence Journal / Mary Murphy

PROVIDENCE — The vehicle intended to end the brief but intense Newport trolley war doesn’t look any different from the one that began it, unless you look awfully close.

That’s the point.

On a recent afternoon, Alfred J. Moscola, the general manager of the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority, was showing off the first of a series of trolleys being converted from compressed natural gas, or CNG, to diesel fuel.

A little wooden door a few inches long, almost indistinguishable from the rest of the molding along the trolley’s right side, is about the only sign that RIPTA’s mechanics have torn almost everything mechanically important out of the trolley. It now has a new engine, fuel system, electrical system and suspension. The little door hides the filler cap for the diesel fuel.

A few months ago, the Newport tourism industry was up in arms because RIPTA was planning to replace the trolleys with vehicles that the authority said were trolleys but the Newport people said were really thinly disguised buses.

After a campaign that saw the Newport group paying to put “Save the Trolleys” advertisements on the side of the vehicles and taking its case to the governor’s office, RIPTA changed its mind, and is keeping the trolleys and converting them to burn diesel fuel.

The result is the trolley Moscola was showing off. It gleamed, its outside polished and its wood trim bright with varnish. Best of all, it apparently follows the recipe for bridging a deep divide between the transit authority and an angry Newport tourist industry: similar looks.

“They’re going to be happy in Newport,” Moscola said.

And they are, even though they haven’t seen the goods yet.

“We’ve very pleased,” said Trudy Coxe, the executive director of the Preservation Society of Newport County, which runs the Newport mansions and was a center of resistance to RIPTA’s original plan. “I think they deserve a big bouquet of flowers.”

“I think the Newport trolley fuss is over,” she said.

John Rodman, marketing director for the Preservation Society and Newport’s point man in the trolley dispute, is still cautious. “We haven’t seen it yet,” he said.

RIPTA’s earlier plan to replace the trolleys stemmed from the fact that the trolleys were wearing out. Moscola wanted to replace them all, including the five operating in Newport. He said they are difficult and expensive to maintain and operate, among other failings. Making a decision urgent was the increasing difficulty of fueling them. CNG is an expensive and complicated fuel for RIPTA to use, and the failure of some expensive equipment was likely to make it impossible to fuel the trolleys on Aquidneck Island. That would mean driving them to Providence for a fill-up.

Moscola found a “trolley” to his liking, with a diesel engine and the other mechanical advantages of a bus, and the look, he thought, of a trolley.

The Newport group, however, tracked down the substitute, built by the bus manufacturer Gillig, on the Internet. They denounced it as a poor imitation of a trolley. If they weren’t fooled by the Gillig’s “Trolley Bus Replica,” they figured, the city’s visitors wouldn’t be, either.

RIPTA was apparently going to rip out a key part of the Newport experience that the city’s tourist industry members believe helps to draw thousands of tourists to the city. The Newport group dug its heels in.

RIPTA, which has terrible budget problems and needs all the friends it can find, thought again. The result was the conversion project, which Moscola has enthusiastically embraced.

The new/old trolley even has a bigger engine, 215 horsepower compared with 195. “It’s going to be a racecar,” Moscola said.

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blandis@projo.com