Minecraft rail guide: Everything you need to know
Rails are a type of block in Minecraft on which any kind of minecart can be placed and moved. They are essentially railway tracks from real life into the game's world, which allow players to move items or entities from one place to another. Rails can be placed flat on any solid block and can be connected to one another. There are a total of four different rails with different purposes and crafting recipes.
Here is everything to know about every rail in Minecraft.
Everything to know about all kinds of rails in Minecraft
Regular rail
Regular rail can be crafted using six iron ingots and one stick. This crafting recipe gives out 16 rails for players to use.
Regular rail is the most commonly used variant of rail in Minecraft. It is a simple block on which minecarts can move if a player or an entity pushes it. However, the minecart's movement is limited on regular rails if there is no continuous force applied to it. This means that a minecart will experience friction from the rails and stop after a while.
Hence, regular rails are usually used between two redstone-powered rails that can further thrust a minecart ahead. Players can also use them and then manually push a minecart around.
Powered rail
Powered rail is a special redstone rail that is crafted using six gold ingots, one redstone dust, and one stick.
Since redstone is applied to this rail, it can be activated using any redstone signal-emitting block, like a redstone torch or a redstone block. Once this rail is active, the speed of the minecart can be increased or decreased depending on the signal strength coming to the powered rail.
However, since it can mostly speed up a minecart's movement, it is commonly used in long railway systems. Players can place powered rails at regular intervals between several regular rails. The powered rail will ensure that the minecart's speed is maintained, provided every rail gets the same signal strength.
Detector rail
Detector rail is another special redstone rail that can be crafted with six iron ingots, one redstone dust, and one stone pressure plate.
Since this rail has a pressure plate on it, minecarts on it can activate the rail itself. Furthermore, it has the redstone component in it, which enables it to send a redstone signal to any adjacent block. Hence, in simple terms, this rail can activate any redstone block if a minecart runs over it.
If a minecart with chest or hopper is placed on the detector rail, and a redstone comparator is placed adjacent to the rail, the strength of the redstone signal emitted by the rail will be determined by the number of items in that chest or hopper.
Players can use detector rail to activate any redstone contraption only when they release a minecart onto the tracks.
Activator rail
Activator rail is the fourth and last type of rail that can be crafted using six iron ingots, two sticks, and one redstone torch.
Since this rail has a redstone torch embedded inside it, it needs an external redstone signal to get active and then further activate any item placed in a minecart. In simple terms, activator rails are used to activate any block present in a minecart.
If an activator rail is active with a redstone torch, and a minecart with TNT goes through it, the rail will ignite the TNT. If a minecart has a command block on it, the activator rail will execute that command. Even an empty minecart starts shaking, and entities in minecarts get thrown out if it rolls over an activator rail.
Hence, this type of rail can be used in various redstone contraptions. It can be used to activate any command on a command block, or even be used with a minecart with hoppers to stop the hoppers from working whenever a player wants.
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