Having moved last Nov, I have been without a layout for just about a year. I had been doing HO standard gauge. A smaller house and RR room gave me the idea of doing an N scale layout. Until I put up a bit of track, laid out some buildings I had on hand and ran a few trains. Completely uninspired. Every time I picked up a RR mag to thumb through or read I kept being drawn to On30 or On3. I have some of each picked up at one sale or another over the years. Impulse buying. We all know what that is right? I have pretty much broken that habit. But it comes time to face reality and that seems to be the need to give into a bigger scale.

So I did a bit of research on line as to what was and is available and it turns out that scratch building is still very much a need in both scales unless you throw in the Colorado NG rr's.

What I have is an MMI k-28? their 1st On30 loco with the defective decoder. Still heeds to be replaced.

On30 shay which is dead in the tracks without new gears.

On3 Grandt Line 0-4-0 in kit form

3 On3 freight car kits, one of which, a reefer is built.

And 5 HO steamers which we know from past articles can be converted to On30.

So the question then is If HO can be converted to On30 and On30 can be converted to On3 by spreading the drivers and cylinder heads, is there any reason why an HO loco cannot also be used? Granted the boiler would need to be enlarged too as well as being redetailed.For those of you who are new and reading this HO and On30 use the same track as the rails are the same distance apart.

Thanks for any feedback, Jack