The great bus hunt is over. The Otago Settlers Museum has long been searching for a bus from the late 1930s to accompany the museum's Art Deco NZR bus station when it reopens to the public late next year, after the museum's $35 million redevelopment is completed.
The bus station began operating in 1939.
After more than two years of looking, museum staff have tracked down a former Dunedin bus, now in Wellington, and a bus heritage group has agreed to donate it.
Museum director Linda Wigley briefed settlers museum board members on the favourable development, at a board meeting yesterday.
Ms Wigley was pleased with the outcome and joked that it would have been "embarrassing" to have the bus station reopened without a suitable bus.
Museum officials said the Wellington bus had operated in Dunedin in the 1930s and would eventually be housed in the museum's former bus station garage area.
Discussions about obtaining and shifting the bus were at an early stage, and a great deal of fixing and restroing work would have to be done before the bus was suitable for display, officials said.
