This combine was milled out of a blank "scratchbuilders kit" I picked up at Muir's Irving meet for $10 in 1986; which makes it the most expensive $10 car I've ever bought, as I did it with a sears drill motor (which eventually went poof along with the trigger,) it also ate the clutch on my dremel too.
Chronologically I ordered this "NYC coach kit" first (which I eventually determined was milled to a PRR Congo parlor plan) directly from Benson in the late eighties. At the time, with those adverts in 1 to the 48 it seemed pretty reasonably priced at $30, then once it showed up I realized I had a bought a scale length Lionel extrusion.....man what a newbie, whew. However, once I got these done along with a restored basket case Kasiner coach I had a loose facsimile of one of those spartan Empire Service day trains for my cigar band E unit. Oddly it was the only passenger train running on the DFW club for awhile, at least until Joe Grillo showed up.
Anyway after querying the readers over on OGR I decided based on the comments there and from some of my modular club members to go with the Alcad process over Testors metalizer, but ultimately it didn't work out as the metal coat moved with the subsequent application of the clear sealer, so they were finished with Krylon aluminum. I also used them to finally perfect the specific technique for applying home photo-jet printed decals, which I eventually mastered after completely discarding my conventional decal application process, I do intend to re-employ this portion of the experiment.
The cars are now in service down at the downtown club, I was originally going to sell them at the next show but decided to "dress them up" in a scheme that would be appreciated (at least by the "green team") if not for my own sentimental reasons. My opinion is at the very least its an improvement over the original look if no other reason than my having replaced those wretched Lionel end caps, likewise they'll sub for some of the other passenger stock there that has become really ratty looking over the past fifty years and needs refurbishing, which I'll post here for fans of old O passenger kits.