For years, the Ottawa Valley Garden Railway Society has hosted a series of operations sessions on a weekend in July.  It started with Ken Brunt from Pennsylvania coming up to visit and operate on Fred Mills’ Ironwood Peter’s Pond and Western Railroad.  While the IPP&W hosts regular operating sessions each weekend during the warmer weather, this has become an annual event that is now referred to as the American Invasion - as many of the visitors are coming from “South of the Border”.

While I had read about this on the forums, the 2004 session sounded like it had been a great time and I resolved to find out more about it.  In September 2004, Jean and I visited Doug & Barb Matheson in Manotick.  While there, we not only got a great tour of Ottawa, but we were also able to attend one of the weekend operating sessions on the IPP&W.  This was the first time I had ever operated in any scale and I was hooked.

Since that time, we have made it a point to attend each year.