Starting next month, The Canadian Pacific Holiday Train will be travelling across the continent. This year, the annual Christmastime tradition is turning 20.

Salem Woodrow is with CP Rail. She explained the Holiday Train started with humble beginnings back in 1999.

“A handful of cars reaching only a handful of communities and now it’s really grown to be this great program that reaches 164 communities across Canada and the United States,” Woodrow said.

The Holiday Train is a community outreach endeavour of CP Rail, with the focus of helping the communities they travel to. All of the money raised, and the food collected, remain in the community where it is raised. Overall, it has been a very successful way to help communities across the continent.

“The Holiday Train program has raised more than $14.5 million and 4.3 million pounds of food for North American food banks,” Woodrow related.

This year, the musicians which will be riding the rails with CP Rail’s illuminated train will be a star-studded group, as it has been in the past. Here in Weyburn, when the train rolls into town on December 16th, it will be The Trews performing. This is the first time the Nova Scotian rockers, known for their hits “Not Ready To Go” and “Hold Me In Your Arms”. They will be joined by Willy Porter, who has performed on the Holiday Train in the past.

All of the money and food collected when the Holiday Train comes to Weyburn on December 16th will be going to the Weyburn Salvation Army Food Bank.