Nachoman 2010 bash challenge - passenger car

[nachoman]

I hope I will not have enough time to finish a 3rd challenge car before the end of the contest, but I am still unemployed and have tons of free time to use. So, I might as well get started on another project . (My hope is that I find a job soon so that I don't have time to finish )

Anywho, these are two model power coaches I bought a while back. They really are quite nice coaches for their price, and would look good as an 1880s coach being pulled by a 4-4-0 or 2-6-0. But, they are too short to look good with my other passenger cars and too wide to convert easily to narrow gauge. Since I have no use for them within my current plans, I will try bashing the two together to create a longer car. I found plans for a narrow vestibule coach in an old issue of model railroader, and these cars would make a decent starting point.

The prototype car is about 58 feet, and the model cars are about 48 feet. That means I need to combine the two cars together to get the extra ten feet. The cars are also only 9' wide, whereas most passenger cars in my era were at least 10' wide. My MDC passenger cars scale out to 10'6" wide, and the Model Railroader drawing of the narrow vestibule car is 9'10" wide. I won't make any attempt to widen the car - i will live with that slight discrepancy. I will pretend this is a car built around 1890 and purchased secondhand.