REALLY SideTracked - Coalville Town Traditional Geocache

This is a small cache placed near what was once Coalville's railway station.

The Leicester and Swannington Railway line was one of the earliest lines in the country, arriving in Coalville in 1833 and by the end of that year it was delivering coal from the local collieries of Whitwick, Bagworth and Ibstock. The engineer for the construction of the line was Robert Stephenson, while his father George Stephenson raised much of the capital needed to fund it. It closed to passengers in September 1964, but it remains open for goods traffic.

The Miners Memorial statue which now stands on this site was officially unveiled by David Taylor MP and the Right Reverend William Down, Assistant Bishop of Leicester, in 1998 to mark the one hundredth anniversary of the Whitwick Colliery Disaster, in which thirty five men and boys lost their lives.The inscription reads "This memorial is dedicated to all miners of Leicestershire who gave their lives winning the coal"