Athearn Funit

Hi,I have difficult with my username and I had to make another one...

Here's my question about Athearn F unit locomotive..
I'm seraching a way to reduce the space between the locomotives and the cars
as we can see,looking great in front view


but,between the units,the space are very large and for sure,not to scale..


even with the shorter coupler shank I found,still get a lot of space,and I trying to find a good way,to make a modification,or only a drawbar to get a real scale space between the engines..

If having some idea,it's will be welcome..

If you can find a pair of MDC(Roundhouse) dummy couplers,they're shorter,and drilling new holes in the coupler pad closer to the frame
might help.(Drill+tap for 2-56 screw,no room for coupler box)