TOM RUSSELL'S COWBOY TRAIN
Vancouver to Toronto
November 4-8, 2006

If you're interested in the Cowboy Train, you might want to know about these other organizations: BC Cowboy Heritage Society Cowboy Entertainer Magazine

Here's what travelers on the 2005 Cowboy Train had to say: "The best of the best! Glad to travel with you all. I can't wipe the smile off my face." - Gerry Frost, Calgary, AB "Sixty nine of the nicest people plus nine of the most talented; 24/7 days and nights of all killer/no filler. Unforgettable weird and wonderful stuff that has me already thinking back in disbelief -- was it all really that good?? It was really that good, like the best of a movable Elko without worrying about tickets." - Corky Gordon Saddle up to join a legend in the making! Five nights total, with three days and nights of music on board the last great long-distance streamline train still operating in North America - Via Rail's CANADIAN from Vancouver to Toronto. Round-robins and evening concerts all day and night with some of the top names in Cowboydom: songwriter extraordinaire TOM RUSSELL, yodeler and cowboy entertainers WYLIE & THE WILD WEST, folk icon ROSALIE SORRELS, songpoet STEPHANIE DAVIS and cowboy vaudevillian SOURDOUGH SLIM. Afternoon Open Mic - your chance to strut your stuff! Our own private 1950's vintage stainless-steel dome car, diner, sleepers and performance car. Rolling through the Canadian Rockies, across the vast prairies and into the rugged landscape of the Shield - over 4,400 kilometres on the rails that built a nation. Sleeper accommodations, great meals prepared on board, excellent hotels in Vancouver and Toronto and Cowboy Train kickoff concert in Vancouver. Plenty of room on board for socializing and song- swapping; plenty of glass-topped dome seating for taking in the scenery. This trip is limited to 70 participants. British journalist Peter Culshaw traveled on the 2005 Cowboy Train and wrote a lengthy piece in the GUARDIAN. Download it at: http://www.flyingunderradar.com (scroll to bottom of the main page) Photographer Antonio Zazueta shot amazing pictures of the trip - click here to see them. George Szynal's epic poem about the 2005 Cowboy Train is viewable here.

Sat. November 4
Gather in Vancouver, hotel provided (The Fairmont Hotel Vancouver) Cowboy Train kickoff concert in Vancouver
Sun. November 5
day free for sightseeing; gather at Via Rail depot. Depart Vancouver 5:30 pm. Dinner on board as we enter the awesome Fraser River Canyon. 8:30 pm - Midnight: Evening Concert.

Mon. November 6
Wake up to some of the most magnificent scenery in the world! We'll pass Mt. Robson, the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies, wend our way through Yellowhead (Tete Jaune) Pass and descend into the mountain town of Jasper at 11am (MT). We depart at 12:20, allowing for plenty of mountain air and leg- stretching. Workshops through the afternoon. In late afternoon we arrive in Edmonton, with a chance to stretch our legs, then we're off again. Starting at 8:30pm as we roll across the prairies, through small towns like Biggar and Viking, we'll be rocking and rolling till midnight in the performance car.

Tue. November 7
Across the prairies and Into Winnipeg at 11:20am (CT), where the Red and Assiniboine rivers meet at "The Forks;" depart 12:25pm. The afternoon is filled with workshops, and, as evening falls, we enter the land of 1,000 lakes and the Canadian shield - some of the oldest rock and landscape on earth - over a thousand miles of nearly uninhabited terrain. This night on board features a full compliment of music, story and song!

Wed. November 8
Morning through the Shield, then into the small railroad town of Capreol for a group photo and leg-stretching just after noon. Our final afternoon on board brings us a last round of workshops and shows. We'll have an early dinner as we near Toronto, then, at 8:00pm, we pull into Union Station and cross the street to check in to the magnificent Fairmont Royal York, recently voted Canada's best deluxe hotel

Thurs. November 9
Time to head home, or (optionally) stay another night for a planned Tom Russell/Rosalie Sorrels concert in Toronto. Special ticket price and additional hotel nights available.

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THE PERFORMERS:

Wylie & The Wild West

www.wylieww.com

Audiences love this lanky cowboy with the big grin and the amazing yodel. Guitar in hand, Wylie Gustafson's energy is an imposing force. Yodeler, songwriter, rancher, horseman, and world famous "Yahooer," Wylie Gustafson leads the musical outfit known as Wylie & the Wild West. The group has performed on stages including the Kennedy Center, the Grand Ole Opry (over 45 times), The National Folk Festival and the Lincoln Center. They are one of the America's hardest working acts. As one critic states, "Gustafson is the coolest cowpoke around. This guy is old school cool!" Wylie is truly one of the finest cowboy singers of his generation.

ROSALIE SORRELS

www.rosaliesorrels.com

"One of the most wonderful voices in American music, an instrument as mellow and finely aged as an antique viola." - Boston Globe

Rosalie was born in Idaho 70 years ago and lives there now in a log cabin her father built, 30 miles outside of Boise. She has traveled this country for the past 40 years and wherever she has stopped she has made lifelong friends. She has an encyclopedic knowledge of the folk idiom, ranging from the English ballads to Mormon songs to the work of contemporary songwriters - not just the songs but also the tradition from which they are derived. Her songs and stories serve to create and preserve the oral tradition. In the mid-60�s her home in Boise, and later Salt Lake City, were the stopping places for just about any creative person who came through town: Hunter Thompson and Studs Terkel wrote introductory liner notes for her albums; Robert Creeley wrote a poem about her; Studs Terkel has included interviews with her in two of his books. She was at the Newport Folk Festival in 1966. In recognition of her role as a creator of and collaborator in the American culture of the second half of the twentieth century, the University of California at Santa Cruz has set up a Rosalie Sorrels Archive. Rosalie has recorded over 20 albums and written three books, including Way Out in Idaho, published in honor of the Idaho centenary, a monumental collection of songs, stories, pictures, and recipes gathered in the course of three years spent traveling around her home state and listening to its people. "Sorrels has decried the music industry's attempt 'to homogenize women and ethnicity into something blander.' She's living proof that there are some things the biz just can't whitewash." - Chicago Reader

SOURDOUGH SLIM:

www.sourdoughslim.com

"Audience members, impressed by his cascading yodels while two-steppin� and fingering the accordion strapped to his chest were speechless when he did all those things and spun a flat lariat simultaneously" - Nevada Appeal.

Totally retro. Hilariously entertaining. From the moment this accordion squeezin� Will Rogers swaggers on stage, it�s apparent to everyone that they�re in for a rollicking good time. Slim, aka Rick Crowder, has appeared at Carnegie Hall, The Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering and ABC�s Good Morning America. The East Bay Express calls him "The most entertaining cowboy singer-yodeler-accordionist extant." Born in Hollywood, California, Rick Crowder spent much of his childhood on a family cattle ranch in the Sierra foothills. But as he explains, "my true calling as a cowboy was not on the range but, rather, on the stage." Nowadays Slim transports us to a whimsical world where vaudevillian camp intermingles with cowboy lore, producing grins galore. His fast-paced stage show combines cowboy singing, award winning yodeling and comedy, accompaniment on accordion, guitar, ukulele and harmonica and a keen knowledge of the traditional Western repertoire.

STEPHANIE DAVIS:

www.stephaniedavis.net

"The song, especially a great one, is king, and the singers are its subjects." Stephanie Davis is passionate about great writing, especially great songwriting. "It's a mysterious blend," the unassuming singer-songwriter says of her trade, "part magic, part craft, and part keeping your butt in the chair. Songwriting is hands-down the most aggravating, exhilarating, enlightening, challenging, and exasperating thing I have ever done... and that's probably why I am so crazy about it." The fourth-generation Montanan spent several years in Nashville, honing her craft and having her songs recorded by such artists as Garth Brooks, Roger Whittaker, Shelby Lynne, Martina McBride, Laurie Lewis and Don Edwards. In addition, she has gained respect as a soulful vocalist and talented multi-instrumentalist, both live and in the studio. In addition to recording her songs, Garth Brooks included her for several stints in his touring band, and she has opened for him on several tours. She is featured in Hal Cannon's documentary film "Why The Cowboy Sings" and is a favorite on "Prairie Home Companion" on public radio nationwide.

TOM RUSSELL

www.tomrussell.com

"Russell's work is among the most moving and literary of the past thirty years, an antidote to the recent trajectory of self-absorption in American singer- songwriting . . . his story-songs are unlike any others." -Andrew Marcus, East Bay Express

"The master of the western-theme narrative song is Tom Russell." -Glen Starkey, New Times

"Tom Russell is the John Steinbeck of country song." -Patricia McCormick, author, Lady Bullfighter

Tom Russell was born in Los Angeles in 1950 and now makes his home on the border in El Paso, Texas. He has recorded seventeen albums of original material and has written such classics as "Navajo Rug," "Gallo del Cielo," "Blue Wing," "Walking on the Moon," "St. Olav's Gate," and "Outbound Plane." Russell's songs have been recorded by Johnny Cash, Nanci Griffith, Guy Clark, Doug Sahm, Dave Alvin, Joe Ely, Ian Tyson, Suzy Bogguss, Iris DeMent, Peter Case, k.d. lang, Bob Neuwirth, Sylvia Tyson, Katy Moffatt and many others. Russell's acclaimed tribute to Merle Haggard, "Tulare Dust," co-produced with Dave Alvin, was responsible for creating what came to be known as the "Americana" radio format. It was that format's longest running number one record. His latest cd, HOTWALKER, has been rapturously received by music press worldwide, and he has recently appeared twice on the David Letterman show. Rolling Stone stated of Russell's THE MAN FROM GOD KNOWS WHERE, "Russell is one of America's greatest songwriters... this record is as close to a Homeric treatment of American history as we're ever likely to see."

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PRICE

$2649.00 CN per person (approximately $2310 US at exchange rates a/o 02/06). Includes hotel room at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver and at the Fairmont Royal York in Toronto, ticket to Vancouver concert, all meals on board, sleeper accommodations (upper or lower semi-private berth accommodations: bench seat by day, roomy single bed by night), shower in each car, private dome car/lounge, 24-hour access to Performance Car, all Cowboy Train activities. Gratuities, alcoholic beverages and transfers are not included. Private (enclosed room) sleeping car space provide additional storage space, privacy and one's own sink and toilet facilities. $429 per person CN (approx $375 US a/o 02/06) additional. To reserve your spot, send us an e-mail, call toll-free in North America 866-484-3669 (or 802-463-3669) or fax us at 802-463-3677. (if by e-mail, we need your name, address, phone, number in party, type of accomodation desired and intended means of payment. We'll get back to you asap)

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We are happy to set up a monthly payment schedule at no additional cost to you. A non-refundable deposit of one month's payment is required to hold space. Checks accepted in US or Canadian funds (make out to Flying Under Radar, and send to PO Box 653, Bellows Falls, VT 05101 USA). Balance is fully refundable, up to 90 days prior to departure. 50% refundable up to 45 days prior to departure, and non-refundable after that. Trip is fully transferrable up to 14 days from departure. We accept American Express, Discover, Visa, Mastercard, personal checks and money orders.

During months upcoming we provide extensive information on how to pack, getting across the border, how life on board works, and will be happy to answer any additional questions you might have. Our travel agent, Lisa Timmons at United Nations Travel (unitednationstravel@yahoo.com) will work with you to determine additional hotel nights (at our group rate) at Vancouver and Toronto hotels, as well as your travel options to and from Canada (her consultations are free; she charges a nominal service charge for actual flight ticketing). Return travel is not provided. We suggest checking out the discount Canadian airlines such as Westjet. An advance-purchase Vancouver-Toronto one-way fare on WestJet (a/o 09/ 05) is $258CN (approx. $215 US) including all taxes. Lisa can also help arrange your return on Via Rail or Amtrak if you desire.

The Fine Print: The payment of a deposit or any part or full payment for a reservation shall constitute consent to all the provisions contained herein. Flying Under Radar, LLC shall not be held responsible for for property loss or damage and/or any damages resulting from illness, personal injuries or death which may be sustained by reason of, or while engaged on, any trip or tour whether due to the ownership, maintenance, use, operation or control of any vehicle, hotel, common carrier or any other conveyance used in carrying out these tours. We can assume no liability due to any cause whatsoever whether caused by failure or delay or other irregularity, acts or omissions occurring during a tour under which the means of transportation or other service thereby is offered or supplied by owners, operators or public carriers for whom Flying Under Radar, LLC acts only as agent. Flying Under Radar, LLC reserves the right (at its discretion) to alter or omit any part of the itinerary, or change any reservation, feature and/or means of conveyance without notice or for any reason whatsoever and without allowance or refund and with extra costs, if any, resulting therefrom paid by the passengers. Lineup subject to change. We reserve the right to cancel any tour prior to departure, in which case payment will be refunded without further obligation on our part. Flying Under Radar, LLC shall not be responsible for any injury to person (whether or not resulting in death) or damage to property. Flying Under Radar, LLC strongly urges individual passengers to obtain appropriate insurance coverage. Baggage is at the owner's risk entirely. The transportation companies concerned are not to be held responsible for any act, omission or event during the time passengers are not aboard their carriers or conveyances. The passenger contract in use by the carriers concerned (when issued) shall constitute the sole contract between the transportation companies and the purchaser of these tours and/or passage. By accepting the ticket the passenger also agrees to its terms and conditions. By forwarding of deposit, the passenger certifies that he/she does not have any mental, physical or other condition or disability that would create a hazard for him/herself or other passengers. Flying Under Radar, LLC reserves the right to cancel or withdraw any person as a member of the tour at any time.