Thursday 18 September 2025 (1206) – First Eastern Counties Buses 36903 (YN69 XZG), one of 19 Alexander Dennis (ADL) Enviro400 City bodied Scania N250UDs (numbered 36901-36919) added to the fleet in November/December 2019 to operate the Norwich-Peterborough ‘excel’ service. This was the 0947 service B from Norwich (Railway Station) to Peterborough seen passing the South Gate in London Road, King’s Lynn.

The South Gate guarded the southern approaches to the town for nearly 600 years. Not only did it perform a defensive role but it also acted as a point of entry and exit to collect tolls and duties on merchandise. Traffic heading towards the town passes through the archway whereas traffic heading out of town passes alongside the building.

The First Eastern Counties King’s Lynn garage, which is just around the corner from here, provides almost all of the buses for the service (15 allocated at King’s Lynn garage and 4 at Norwich garage). This is where most of the driver changeovers take place and the bus is leaving after a new driver had taken over.

The ‘excel’ service timetable is quite complex but uniform. To legitimately keep this quite lengthy service within the rules of local bus service regulations rather than the more stringent rules pertaining to true long distance type operations, the services are registered in shorter segments although the buses run through:
PF0000323/373: Norwich-East Dereham
PF0000323/372: East Dereham-King’s Lynn
PF0000323/371: King’s Lynn-Wisbech
PF0000323/370: Wisbech-Peterborough
PF0000323/433: Norwich-Swaffham

The full timetable may be seen via this link: tinyurl.com/wt35yxnv

This was the last of four buses I travelled on during my outing today:

Bus 1: Coach Services Limited BU16 OZO – South Gate, London Road to the Bus Station.
Bus 2: Lynx (Coastal Red) 11 (YJ07 VSK) – Bus Station to Felstead Estate then Gaywood Tesco.
Bus 3: Go to Town (WNCT) RX72 TJV – Gaywood Tesco via North Lynn to the Bus Station.
Bus 4: First Eastern Counties Buses 36903 (YN69 XZG), Bus Station to South Gate, London Road.