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Auckland has been bypassed in favour of a historic Christchurch site for a new $6 million national museum celebrating New Zealand's rail history.
The National Railway Museum will be built on the site of the first train service in New Zealand at Ferrymead, and will bring together locomotives, archives and other historic rail items from nearly 140 years of rail.
The project, designed by renowned architect Peter Beaven and featuring a revolving 14m-high "Roundhouse" to house the old trains, has been developed over three years.
Auckland's Museum of Transport and Technology (Motat) was considered as a site but found to be less suitable, and with Christchurch rail enthusiasts driving the project, they were able to win the backing.
Motat has put aside any feelings of rivalry to celebrate the fact the museum will be built.
Director Jeremy Hubbard said he understood the decision to locate the railway museum in Christchurch was made a few years ago, and he was comfortable with that decision.
National Railway Museum chairman Colin Dash said the museum would be a focal point for "not just the equipment but the social history of the people who worked on the trains".
A national museum had long been talked about, but it took a single Canterbury railway enthusiast to "get stuck in" and begin to seriously consider how it would work.
A survey was done by Lincoln University and the concept was put to a national meeting of railway enthusiasts.
It is expected the national museum will have relationships with regional museums around the country and will take trains and other exhibits on loan.
About 10,000 plans and a large collection of old photographs are already available for the archives section of the museum.
On Track has already offered to help with the construction of the complex, while the group behind the museum hope to raise the $6 million through a combination of Government funding, lotteries and private grants.
It is expected construction will begin about halfway through next year.
