A fully-fledged public transport museum may be still merely a dream, but in a quiet street in Tarxien, one retired bus driver has set about creating the next best thing.

“This is my life,” says 65-year-old Ninu Bugeja, surrounded by 43 detailed handmade models showcasing the entire colourful history of Malta’s buses.

For the past 36 years, Mr Bugeja has devoted hours every day to creating his models, which range from an 1856 Omnibus to an Arriva-era King Long, taking in the many beloved and grumbled-about green and orange specimens in between.

Mr Bugeja builds his models, some as big as four feet in length, entirely from scratch over some eight months, constructing everything from the seats to the wheels out of hard cardboard.

Each one is a perfectly accurate representation of an existing bus at a specific moment in its history, from its seats and registration plate to the colour and the route, many reflecting a time when buses were painted in different colours according to the route they served. Moreover, as Mr Bugeja himself worked as a bus driver for 20 years, many of the models carry the added significance of having actually belonged to friends and relatives over the years.

I’m still in love with them. Don’t bother showing me a new Mercedes

“I use a book for research but I can remember all the details by heart,” he smiles.

Mr Bugeja also proudly displays a model of the bus he once called his own – bought for him by his father, with whom he had previously worked selling bread from a cart in Qormi (a model of it is now a small appendix to his bus collection).

Ninu Bugeja with his model buses.

“I used to keep parts for the bus in my garage,” he recalls. “I’d work from 5.30am to 11pm, and then spend my weekends fixing it up. My sister even used to help me wash it. Drivers today can’t do that.”

Today, Mr Bugeja laments the passing of that lifestyle, but even more, the actual buses that have, by and large, been lost.

“Some are still ‘alive’ but most have been scrapped. It’s such a pity they didn’t keep one of each. We’ve lost a big part of our culture,” he says, flicking through a book of photographs showing the iconic decorations that once adorned the interiors. “I’m still in love with them. Don’t bother showing me a new Mercedes... just give me one of these.”