The Canadian Pacific (CP) Holiday Train will soon set out once again to entertain hundreds of thousands of people, celebrating 20 years of collecting food and raising funds for food banks across North America.

Canadian rock group, The Trews will hop on board the second leg of the trip with Willy Porter in Chicago to complete the trip through Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota before arriving at their final destination in Weyburn this Sunday evening.

The CP Holiday Train program launched in 1999 and has since raised more than $14.5 million and gathered more than 4.3 million pounds of food for communities along CP's routes in Canada and the United States.

Each event is free, with CP encouraging attendees to open their cupboards and wallets to help address hunger needs in their communities. Local food banks will be accepting donations at each stop to ensure those less fortunate have enough healthy food this holiday season.

"We are excited to be part of the CP Holiday Train this year. This will be our first time touring by train, which is something we've always wanted to do, and to do so while being able to raise some money and put food on local shelves at this most important time of year makes it all the more special. We can't wait!" says lead guitarist for The Trews, John-Angus MacDonald.

Discover Weyburn's Denis Conroy had the opportunity to chat with John-Angus MacDonald, and you can listen to that full conversation here:

With numerous radio hits drawn from six scorching studio albums plus several EPs, a pair of live records, and a retrospective, the Nova Scotia-bred, Hamilton /Toronto-based combo of singer/guitarist Colin MacDonald, guitarist John-Angus MacDonald, bassist Jack Syperek, and drummer Chris Gormley have won universal acclaim for both their dazzling live performances and their highly relatable songs.

Together as The Trews for more than 20 years, the band has garnered a number of certified gold hits and albums, and has racked up multiple award nominations and wins over the years.

Just a few months ago, the band released their sixth studio album titled 'Civilianaires', which has seen rave reviews from all over the world.

“We’re almost in existential-crisis-mode if we don’t have new songs we’re excited about,” told John-Angus MacDonald. “With us, it’s always ‘What’s next?’ We’re most galvanized while we’re creating. And this new album is a completely fresh take on what we’ve done before.”

Co-writes throughout the album include Canadian heavyweights Max Kerman of the Arkells, along with Serena Ryder.

The Trews have played on-stage with some of the biggest bands of all time, including The Rolling Stones, Robert Plant and Big Sugar. And now they will be gracing the CP Holiday Train stage, for the first time ever, with American rock musician Willy Porter. *Check out our Willy Porter story here.*

The train is set to arrive in Weyburn (at 512 Railway Avenue) this Sunday at 5:45 p.m., with the free show set to take place from 6:00 p.m. till 6:30 p.m.

Make sure to bring what you can to the fundraiser. As all of the food and cash donations on December 16th will be going directly to the Weyburn Salvation Army Food Bank.

Feel free to enjoy the following videos, courtesy of The Trews' Official Youtube page: