How to restore a single file from a package?

How can I do this without reinstalling the rest of the files as well?

Download the package, for example transmission-daemon, with

sudo apt-get --download-only install transmission-daemon

unpack the package with

mkdir ~/dummy
dpkg-deb -x /var/cache/apt/archives/transmission-daemon_*.deb ~/dummy

restore the file, for example /etc/init.d/transmission-daemon

sudo cp ~/dummy/etc/init.d/transmission-daemon /etc/init.d

remove the dir

rm -rf ~/dummy

I know this is a bit old, but here's my improvement:

$ sudo apt-get download <package-name>

instead of

$ sudo apt-get --download-only install <package-name>

I had a situation where the package was already installed (hence, the proposed solution didn't work), and I wanted to restore just one config file, in order to fix the problem.

Cheers