As Tri-County Literacy prepared for Maine Eastern Railroad’s (MERR) Bath-Wiscasset, Candy Cane Train runs to end last year, Deb Nowak was determined the agency’s biggest fundraiser would go on somehow, somewhere.

It was too important to lose, she said at the time. Nowak is executive director of the nonprofit that serves Lincoln, Sagadahoc and northeastern Cumberland counties. In a phone interview May 21, she discussed a new development that she said has the agency and the Candy Candy Train’s volunteers delighted: The 2016 venue has been found, on some of the Amtrak Downeaster’s Brunswick-Portland runs on Dec. 10 and 11.

“Everyone was so sad in December (2015),” Nowak said. The event’s first 10 years had been with MERR. And the uncertainty over when a new plan would be in place was quite disturbing, she recalled. “Fortunately, it has happened a lot more quickly than I would have thought.”

Times for the runs will be set in late summer or early fall, after Amtrak sets its schedule, Nowak said. The Candy Cane Train will have fewer runs this year — four instead of eight — which will keep it to about 1,000 riders, down from the nearly 2,000 a year it has drawn, Nowak said.

She said this year’s plans also mean that Bath, where Tri-County Literacy and many Candy Cane Train sponsors are based, won’t be on the itinerary.

“The whole Bath community has always been behind us ... It’s exciting and scary at the same time,” she said about the new route for the fundraiser on rails. However, she predicted the event will still get Bath’s support and that of the Wiscasset community and everywhere else the agency serves.

Passengers on past installments did not get out in Wiscasset before the trip back to Bath; the same will happen this year on the Portland stop, Nowak said.

Although the runs’ start and end points have changed, the event’s goal has not, Nowak said: It benefits the agency’s Read with Me family literacy and Literacy Volunteers programs in the three counties.

“Regardless of where the train begins and ends, it’s still supporting the same services,” she said.

MERR had sought to keep leasing the tracks but the state went with a firm with no immediate plans for passenger service. Nowak said she believes passenger runs will one day return to Wiscasset and, if so, any return to the Candy Cane Train’s prior route would depend on whether it could be worked out with a contractor.

There is no commitment to the Downeaster runs as the venue beyond 2016, Nowak said.”It’s the first time. We’ll see how this goes.” The collaboration with Amtrak and the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority (NNEPRA) is ongoing, and has been positive from the outset, she said.

“We can’t thank them enough.”

Woolwich’s Dennis Youland said he was glad about the plans. For years, he would set up a display for the Candy Candy Train that passed his home near Reed’s Pass. Since that’s out for this year, he would like to see if his model train could go on board the Downeaster’s Candy Cane Train runs, he said May 22.

He will do whatever he can for the event, because he supports Nowak’s efforts and Tri-County Literacy’s services, Youland said. “This is a great success for them,” he said about the 2016 plans. “It’s good news. Very good news.”