When the Candy Cane Train takes Woolwich’s Reed’s Pass en route to Wiscasset then back to Bath, Dennis Youland plans to be where he has been in Decembers past, outside his home in a Santa hat, next to his model train track. The Maine Eastern Railroad-themed cars on it will be in motion as the Tri-County Literacy fundraiser goes by in the real MERR cars.

“I love watching the train go by and ... the children ... with their noses pressed to the glass, watching the model train going around the track. And the (MERR) train all but stops and just creeps by on its return trip from Wiscasset,” Youland, retired from 46 years at Bath Iron Works, said near the real and model tracks Sunday.

He’ll add three-foot-tall candy canes and other decorations to the festive scene, regardless of whether there is snow when the MERR train makes its multiple Candy Cane Train trips Dec. 12 and 13. One year of the Candy Cane Train, Youland, 66, used a blow torch to melt the model track’s ice so the cars could move.

Besides putting on the special display for the Candy Cane Train, Youland also donates to Tri-County Literacy.

The Bath-based nonprofit serves Lincoln, Sagadahoc and northeastern Cumberland counties. The Candy Cane Train is the agency’s biggest fundraiser, drawing nearly 2,000 riders and benefiting its Read With Me family literacy and Literacy Volunteers programs, Executive Director Deb Nowak said.

The event has grown each year since its inception a decade ago; last year, it raised $29,911, Nowak said.

The event faces change in 2016.

MERR’s New Jersey-based parent company had sought to renew the lease on the Brunswick-Rockland tracks; however, the state went with Central Maine & Quebec Railway, which has no immediate plans to transport passengers, only freight, the Wiscasset Newspaper’s online sister paper, Penobscot Bay Pilot, reported this fall.

MERR’s Brunswick-Rockland excursion service ended in October.

“It’s really disappointing,” Youland said about the end of MERR’s travels past the home his family has had for generations, and past his display that train riders have enjoyed. Youland has also been a guest engineer on MERR.

Tri-County Literacy is looking at how it may be able to continue the Candy Cane Train event somewhere, in some form yet to be determined.

The event is too important to lose, Nowak said.

“We’re not giving up. We’re going to do the best we can, because it’s such a community event. So many people are involved as individuals and organizations, ... It’s devastating,” she said about the prospect of this year’s trip being the last foreseeable one down the tracks that the event has taken for years.

“We’re hoping we can come up with something that the public will enjoy just as much. It might be something interim. It might be something long-term.”

However, her primary focus right now is on this year’s Candy Cane Train, she said.

“I’m up to my ears in it.”

Word of MERR’s loss of the lease may bump up the Candy Candy Train’s ridership, which has remained strong in recent years, Nowak said. “A lady called last week saying, ‘I want my grandson to go, he’s only 3 but he has to go on it.’ These are the kinds of stories that we’re starting to get now.”

In whatever way the fundraiser is retooled, the loss of MERR as a partner is huge, Nowak said. “It’s been a fabulous relationship, and it’s a relationship that will be sorely missed.”

Youland will miss seeing the Candy Cane Train go by. But, like Nowak, he is hopeful for the event’s future.

“The Candy Cane Train means a very good opportunity to raise some funds for a very worthwhile cause ... The whole thing is about raising money,” he said.

For more on the two days of train rides, including ticket information, visit www.candycanetrain.org or call 207-443-6384. The agency is looking for more businesses to donate cookies and sponsor train rides for families in the Read With ME program, Nowak said.