(05 Jun 2016, 12:09 pm)tyresmoke wrote Another new operator in County Durham is "Doves Coaches"

I'm assuming they are part of the same family as David Dove Travel, given they're from a similar area. There's too much of this family-ism going on in Durham area!


Doves Coaches of New Harrington (County Durham)  BX13CYZ  King Long XMQ6800 C32FT - new to Jeffs of Hemdon and then operated by various of the now ceased Island Fortitude Group operators. Seen at 04/06/2016 by Alan Magill, on Flickr

Meanwhile, added to the fleet at Cochrane's is Van Hool Alicron WT59WCT

A rare wee coach -- WT59WCT  Van Hool T911 Alicron Van Hool C35FT - Cochrane Kelvin Travel, Peterlee.  Seen at Wetherby Services 04/06/2016 by Alan Magill, on Flickr

Doves Coaches are indeed the same family as David Dove. They are based in the same yard.

Just to confuse things even more, minibus operator Frederick Dove is the uncle of David Dove jnr. Frederick Dove is also based in the Herrington yard and uses David Dove Travel fleetnames. If you look closely you can tell the Frederick Dove vehicles as they run on an orange restricted o-licence disk.

The Dove family used to be in partnership with the Reekie family who own Whitestar which are based nearby at GNE's old Philadephia garage.

The Reekie family meanwhile are descendants of the late Don Smith who used to be a large independent operator in the 1980s in County Durham. He used to have lot of colliery contracts at Murton and Easington along with National Express work. Don Smith Travel still trades but the family only have a single coach running on that o-licence now.

I'm sure there's also connection here to the owners of former coach operator Dubmire but I've yet to fathom it out!

Charles