"Model Railroads Go to War" Topic

The image on the website looks more ACW that pulp era.

Actually, it is 20th Century. You can tell by the trucks(wheel sets) on the cars. ACW era cars mostly were 4 -wheel and the cars were much shorter in length.

Actually, the cover is 1860s. The depicted trucks were standard by the 1850s; very few of the older 4 wheel, fixed frame cars were still running by then. And the standard car length generally fell in the 28 to 36 foot range with a pair of 2 axle trucks. See below for additional information.

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Yep – definitely Civil War era – that's the focus of the book itself.

The trucks of most rolling stock at that time was a wood beam type (with some strap iron bracing).

Arch bar trucks (all strap iron) were just starting to show up in some cases.

There was very little variety in rolling stock unless you count the fact that most railroads built their own and therefore it was all different in detail!

Even rail gauges were not yet standardized. Some railroads used gauges as wide as 6 feet (nearly 2 meters)…

The book (and I have it) covers the ACW up to modern. The emphasis is on how the military used the railroads for moving men and supplies and how a modeler can incorporate those features into a layout (with a rundown on equipment, procedures, etc) and a layout track plan as an example. The ACW chapter features the author's O scale Aquia line that ran from City Point to the front, the WWI chapter has a lot on the 60cm trench lines (along with a OO scale trackplan for a supply point to the front layout), the WWII section goes into how the railroads moved the huge volume of military equipment (and features a HO scale port layout), and the modern section goes into how railroads move modern equipment (with a HO scale track plan of the Ft Hood loading area for AFVs).

The USMRR on the pictured boxcar stands for United States Military Railroad, from the American Civil War.

I have, and have read, the book…coastal2's description is spot on.