About 200 veterans from all over Canada are on their way to Ottawa for Remembrance Day ceremonies aboard a latter-day troop train.

The train left Halifax Wednesday morning and is expected to arrive in the national capital sometime Thursday afternoon.

Thousands of Canada's brave men boarded trains just like the VIA Rail Train of Remembrance more than 65 years ago, as part of the first leg of their journey to the front lines of the Second World War.

The plan to revive the troop train was the idea of a couple of Via Rail employees, including Peggy Topple, who wanted to honour veterans in the Year of the Veteran. She told CTV's Canada AM that the train will be making 27 stops on its way to Ottawa.

"It's been amazing the number of communities, small and large, that have come aboard in welcoming the veterans on their departures and their arrivals back," she said from Halifax ahead of the train's departure.

"Even the smallest communities, like Westchester Station, has something like 150 people who are going to be waving to a train as it goes by. Larger cities and towns such as Moncton and Bathurst and Miramichi all have unique events planned as the train stops at each of these locations."

Second World War veteran Owen Cochran, who served in Italy and the Netherlands, is a passenger on the train along with his daughter Janet.

"It's something I've wanted to do for a long time, to go to Ottawa for one of the celebrations. And I've been looking forward to this for several weeks now with a great deal of excitement," he said.

"I wanted my children to know something of what war was like, the experiences that we had during the war, particularly when I was in Italy," he added.

Cochran enlisted in the Canadian Forces at the age of 20 as an engineer but was later moved to the infantry.

"I trained for a year in Canada as an engineer and then when I got in England, there were too many engineers and not enough infantry. So they shipped us all off to the infantry. I went from there to Italy."

But he didn't stay there long.

"The Canadian Forces were moved from Italy to Holland and we took part in the liberation of the city of Appledorn. I marched through there on the day they were liberated."

Cochran's daughter Janet says she's looking forward to helping her father relive some of his memories aboard the Train of Remembrance.

"It's very much an honour and a privilege for me to accompany my father on this journey," she says.

"I think it will be a once in a lifetime experience, an opportunity to hear people's experiences and share those experiences. A very unique opportunity."