Redstone-powered Minecraft — Rails are the kind of thing minecarts can use to move their load. Powered rails can be used with Redstone to improve how fast minecarts passing through them. These rails are redstone mechanisms, and therefore need power components in order to change the speed of the minecarts passing through it. Probe rails are used to temporarily provide redstone energy when minecarts cross over – set up as you would any other rail.
They can be used to unlock doors, power pistons, or with any other complicated redstone contraption you make. Regular rails are minecarts main workers, used the most often, power rails let players turn sections of rails on and off and get a cart moving, and probe rails are used as sort of a pressure plate for the minecarts, as they trigger short bursts of redstone as you pass them. Powered rails can be fueled from either direction, but the easiest way to fuel these rails is to either put a torch of redstone or an activating lever underneath or on top of a block that is sitting on top, or by attaching a detector rail on top. Any neighboring rails can be powered from the redstone torch, up to nine rails.
A tip to powering inclined rails is to put the Redstone Torch under a block supporting the rail, as shown in the image above. Note that a power rail without a redstone torch next to it will serve as a brake and reduce minecart speeds. Once a Redstone piece on the rail is lit, that rail has been activated, which will make a minecart speed up.
Note that placing detector rails only one way up only speeds the minecart if the minecart goes through the detector rails first, if it comes in the other direction, the minecart is more than likely going to come to a halt. Placement is done to make sure the minecart does not fall off rails in the event that it rolls backwards. If you would like to have the minecart stop once it has reached the end of a powered rail, then you will want to put an incline on each end, like shown above.
A stopped minecart will receive power and send in the only direction it can go, useful for when you have to send a minecart to a different station, or back to a mining area. When powered with Redstone, will provide the minecart with push to the direction in which it is moving. If using the passenger car, make sure that button is placed in such a way that it is possible to press while you are inside your car, (2) by flipping a switch, your minecart will be moved.
Simply position the minecart by right-clicking on a rail while holding your minecart. To make the cart move, you simply need to put the piece at the incline of a rail, and then drag and drop the cart. All you have to do to move your cart is set a section of rails up an incline and pull your cart.
Placing a piece of shingle or similar on either end of the track will keep your cart from going off-track. Now, once you have built your choice of railroad tracks, put one sturdy block at each end of the tracks to keep carts from rolling off of the tracks.
When building the railroad, placing a piece of powered rail about every 20 rails will push you forward, should you ride in the minecart. However, if you are riding on an uphill path, you will want to place one piece of Powered Rail every 2 blocks, since the gravitational pull will slow your Minecart considerably.
You have to be aware that a regular, empty minecart will only go 8 blocks with maximum speed once it passes over three powered rails. Plain rails with players at the top will go at the highest speed for 38 blocks over level terrain, while an empty plain minecart will just go eight blocks. Any minecart climbing an inclines requires three powered rails consecutively to achieve max speed, with one powered rail every two blocks for maintaining max speed.
Occupied minecarts (containing either players or a mob) will have traveled as much as 80 blocks across level ground once they are powered by a powerd rail; however, unoccupied minecarts have less momentum and only will have traveled 8 blocks. On flat land, an occupied minecart will maintain its speed by placing a powerd rail every 38 blocks on its path. The minecart will only travel along rails, carrying players as well as items along the rails in the direction that it is being propelled. While a minecart with chests seems like they should be great for building freight trains for moving things, it should be noted they only have as much momentum as a blank minecart, so powered rails will have to be placed every 8 blocks.
On the exposed end, put the stove minecart, with a passenger minecart or a Chest minecart at the other end. If the tilted power rail is activated while the minecart is stationary, the minecart begins to travel downhill (since it is no longer being braked by an idle power rail) before speeding up. A minecart entering the powered rail space at one end of a power rail continues moving in the direction that the power rail is facing, but may experience changes in velocity depending on whether or not the power rail is activated (see below). Dropping an item onto the rail stops the minecart from moving either forwards or backwards.
These rails are even more adaptive, since they have the ability to slow down a minecart almost to a standstill if it is out of energy. Once created, these rails can be placed similar to the other types of rails in Minecraft. Other configurations can be created by placing and removing different rails. A single trigger source can trigger up to 17 rails (one initial rail in the center, eight rails either side).