Go North East offers free travel for veterans and members of the armed forces

Go North East is offering free travel on all services for veterans and current members of the armed forces on Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day. This initiative honours the sacrifices made by service personnel and ensures they can attend Remembrance events without concerns about travel costs.

Go North East bus driver Mark Drape served in the Royal Air Force for six years. He says: “For people like me who have served in the armed forces, being part of Remembrance events is a really important part of honouring friends we’ve lost in service. I attend these events every year so I’m really pleased to see Go North East offering free travel to fellow veterans.”

To mark Remembrance Sunday and recognise the contributions of their veteran colleagues, engineers at Go North East created a giant poppy using recycled materials from their workshop.

Paula Armstrong, a bus driver who posed with the poppy, was in the army’s Royal Logistic Corps for 24 years. She says: “Remembrance for me is about honouring the people behind the history, it’s also about the friends we served beside, the ones who came home and the ones who didn’t, it gives meaning to their sacrifices and ensures their stories live on.”

Ben Maxfield, Business Director, said: “We’re proud to offer veterans and current members of the armed forces free travel – we want to make sure those who have served our country can reach Remembrance events around the region without worrying about the cost of travel.”

“This year, we’ve extended our free travel offer to include Armistice Day as well as Remembrance Sunday.”

Free travel is available on all services to serving personnel who can produce a current ID card, veterans displaying a veteran's badge and anyone travelling in uniform.

ENDS

Notes to editors

Photo:
Go North East drivers who served in the armed forces, from left: Daniel Kennedy – RAF Senior Intelligence Analyst, Andrew Heaps – Assistant Air Traffic Controller in the RAF, Mark Drape – RAF Personnel Administrator and Paula Armstrong – British Army’s Royal Logistics Corps.

Photography by Glen Minikin.

About Go North East:

Go North East runs a network of bus routes across the North East region including Newcastle, Sunderland, Durham, and surrounding areas.

The Go-Ahead Group is one of the UK’s leading providers of public transport, enabling more than a billion passenger journeys each year on its bus and rail services. Go-Ahead places great importance on partnership, adopting a collaborative approach with governments, local communities and strategic partners; developing and operating services that create long-term value for all.

For more information about Go-Ahead Group visit www.go-ahead.com.