Pennsylvania Railroad Horse Express Cars

Horse Express cars were used to transport racehorses, racing teams could transport their horses as if they were luggage. Pennsylvania Railroad had roughly 30 of them that they leased to private stables and racing clubs. They traveled across the country via the Railway Express Agency so they would be prototypical on any US or Canada railway 1930s-1960s.

The BLd cars were of the old style of the PRR and were used in the beginning of the 20th century before they overhauled their passenger fleet in the late 1920s. The B74a followed the new standardized format for heavyweight cars, with a modified version with no windows coming a few years later. Some were also modified with rounded roofs and a full end door, reclassed as B74b.

Later in life, B74a and b cars were sold off to other railroads, but mostly to the Railway Express Agency where they were painted their green with the red diamond herald on each side.

There is one B74a preserved in Hubbard, Ohio, painted in the REA Livery and is being used as a private residence. https://rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=42866&start=30&sid=bc47e069bdb8b484c7c3c53d370570e9 

There is one B74b preserved at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, 90014 Saratoga Springs. https://www.rrmuseumpa.org/our-trains 

From mainstream HO scale manufacturers, the B74a and B74b were only available in brass, and the BLd was unavailable (I can't even find pictures of the prototype). The B74a was also produced in O scale by Lionel recently. Feel free to resize these to fit your modeling scale.

Taken loosely and directly from official PRR diagrams from http://prr.railfan.net/diagrams/PRRdiagrams.html?sel=bagg&sz=sm&fr=

1910 PRR BLd (heavyweight)
1929 PRR B74a (heavyweight) (also included files for body separate from roof)
1931 PRR B74a (modification with no windows)
1931 PRR B74b (smoothside streamlined)

According to the diagrams, the BLd should have a chickenwire-like mesh over the windows and the original B74a over the clerestory windows, and the BLd should have window glass over the clerestory windows and the B74a on the body windows. I used this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07ZQ1ZCKJ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 as well as thin plastic sheets.
The B74b should have window glass over the door windows.

Here is a list of names and numbers for the B74a and B74b: http://prr.railfan.net/passenger/GSPEAR/GSPEAR_PRR_Horse_Car.htm

K4 Decals has released a decal sheet for the B74a and B74b, which could probably be adapted for the BLd
https://k4decals.com/collections/whats-new/products/pennsylvania-railroad-horse-scenery-baggage-car-dulux-gold-decal-prrxhs, standard REA decals should also suffice.

Roof remixed from MadMansGun over on Thingiverse, https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2767784 

UPDATE 7/4/25: redesigned the chassies to accept a kadee #5 or #148 coupler, and redid the truck pins. I will make and upload a standard 6 axel truck at some point, but the stock rivarossi trucks will work with slight moddification