Talk: Rail

Unnamed discussion[]

PLEASE Add links to the different kinds of Rails with some brief information about them. 172.31.24.78 14:21, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Cleanup[]

Would someone (Munin295 or KnightMiner perhaps) be able to help rewrite the added content to the usage section? Currently it seems a bit like a tutorial, rather than an article. –Goandgoo ᐸ Talk
Contribs 07:49, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

I think I've conformed it to the style guide enough to remove the notice, but it could probably still use some work to make it more readable. Although this needed some clean-up, this is the kind of work we need on the wiki. —munin · · 08:45, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for helping to cleanup the recent additions. I definitely agree that we need more people like Bytebasher to help add more quality information to articles. –Goandgoo ᐸ Talk
Contribs 09:02, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

why are you guys removing my contributions? Okay, perhaps you don't like a rambling, chatty presentation .. so how about writing to be about making the needed changes myself? I saw the style warning that Goandgoo placed on the page and was already reading the style guide to figure out how to adapt my text. The images I included for the Best Practices section are needed to understand how blocks next to a rail line affect performance, and the bit about diagonal track is of interest to anyone making a large scale rail system, like me and my buddies on the Museum of SciFi server !! --Bytebasher (talk) 08:57, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi Bytebasher, it really is nothing personal, and ultimately the wiki benefits greatly from people like you who are able to contribute to aspects of the wiki. There was nothing inherently wrong what you were doing, it was just that the best practices section seemed like a tutorial, and hence didn't need to be on this page. However, I have moved the best practices section to the minecarts tutorial, so people interested in that sort of thing can go there to find out more. Keep up the good work! –Goandgoo ᐸ Talk
Contribs 09:02, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi too from me. A wiki is a collaborative effort, entered text doesn't belong to anyone, so anyone can edit it if they think it will improve the article. No one needs to check with a previous contributor to see if they can make changes or ask them to do it -- if they think they can improve it, they should just do it (as you did). Articles really shouldn't have "Best practices" sections (though there may be a few articles around that haven't been fixed yet) -- they should just document the block and leave strategies/etc. to tutorials (conceptually, there's no difference between a discussion of engineering strategy like this and, say, combat strategy). Goandgoo was correct to move this to the appropriate tutorial.

I tried to organize the topics into three sections for now: placement (what happens when you place a rail block), redstone component (how does it interact with redstone), and minecart behavior (how does it interact with minecarts). There's a fourth topic that should also be comprehensively covered under placement: how does a rail change in response to another rail being placed next to it. There are lots of configurations to test and document there as well.

—munin · · 09:29, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

thanks for the feedback guys .. i am with the program now. I have just learned some bad habits in the area of text possessiveness from some recent wiki experiences in an unhealthy environment. Edit Full On .. well, within reason and by the rules that is .. heh -- --Bytebasher (talk) 09:36, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

The minecraft track actually seems to be either 500mm or 625mm gauge, not 750mm as stated in the trivia. There are 8 pixels (500mm) between the innermost edges of the rails (where the gauge is measured from), or 10 pixels (625mm) between the two lighter sections (which may be intended to be the raised section).--81.110.10.58 18:27, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Mobs can't cross rails? But they can. [Java][]

I just noticed that villagers don't seem to care about rails and just walk over them. GMRE (talk) 15:57, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

So do any other mobs. In Bedrock Edition, rails don't confine anything. Amatulic (talk) 06:19, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

So therefore that's a feature exclusive to Java. GMRE (talk) 15:53, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

More like a bug. I found it: MC-33359 (works as intended). It's been that way since version 1.7 apparently. There seems to be some confusion over what happens when a hostile mob is chasing you; does it stop at the rail? That would mean mineshafts are probably pretty safe places to explore, because they are full of rails. I also saw related tickets that non-hostile mobs (like iron golems) are similarly affected.

Please do some tests and update the article. I have shortened your contribution to remove the tutorial advice. Just state what the game behavior is. Amatulic (talk) 21:56, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

To be more specific, I was building a railroad at night time and noticed that the zombies chasing me would always take the long way around the tracks, thus proving that at least under certain conditions, they will not cross tracks. Later I tested this some more and of the mobs I tested, I found that pillagers also don't seem to want to cross rails to come after me. Mineshafts are not safe, because creepers and spiders don't care about rails. GMRE (talk) 20:24, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

What I did in Bedrock Edition was start a creative flat world, enclose some 8×8 areas in rails, and hatch various hostile mob eggs in them. I intended to switch to Survival to see if any of them would cross the rail enclosure to get to me, but I didn't get that far, because the mobs all wandered off immediately as I hatched them. This confirmed to me that rails cannot be used to confine any mobs in Bedrock Edition.

I'm surprised this bug in Java Edition was closed as "works as intended". It just seems like a cheat to me. But then, I understand, Java Edition has other cheat techniques don't work in Bedrock, like the ability to create air pockets underwater, and trapping endermen in boats. Then again, we Bedrock players get boats that don't sink. :) Amatulic (talk) 22:39, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

It's mainly just annoying that I want to have my walled fortified settlements be connected by railroad and there's no good way to make the train stations safe (safe from outsiders and to keep the villagers from leaving), unless I'd resort to unrealistic-looking complex redstone devices. At least I can make each trainstation be a separately closed off area (iron doors) where the villagers can't go. And don't even get me started on how infuriating it is that the locomotives (furnace minecarts) are such a half-ass feature where the train breaks up at every turn, unless there's an unrealistic-looking complex redstone device to reset the train. And it can't be made to push a train either, because it will bounce the cars so far ahead that the locomotive will very quickly be left behind beyond render distance. So the only way to make a long railroad is by powered rails.

Redstone devices in Bedrock must be a nightmare. I can't imagine how enormous any simple piston doorway would be with out "quasi connectivity". And in Bedrock, you can't shoot arrows through visible fence gaps and under a bed. And you can't have super efficient roadways on the nether roof and you have to put up with your fish having inconsistent size and numerous other issues. The ability to place blocks in front of yourself into air takes all the danger out of the nether and the end. GMRE (talk) 15:28, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Hmm. I consider quasi-connectivity to be a serious flaw, actually. My redstone devices are not large. I have piston doorways in a filtering device I made to separate the zombie villagers from zombies coming from a spawner, to heal them and start a village underground.

I've never been able to place a block in mid-air in Bedrock. A block needs a surface.

As for confining mobs, fences and fence gates work well, and they are cheap and easily renewable. Fence gates can also be operated by redstone signals. Amatulic (talk) 15:52, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

By "place block into the air" I was referring to how you don't need to see the surface that you're placing the block onto. This allows a player to build bridges A LOT safer.

A fence could indeed keep the villagers off the railroad, but hostile mobs could still walk on the railroad to enter the settlement. They would be behind the fence which would still keep them separated, but that's not really the same as keeping them completely out of the settlement. Ideally, there would be a way to place a fence gate directly on top of a railroad with out a gap between them. And then maybe the piece of track under the fence gate would be a detector rail that would operate the gate, allowing minecarts to pass. Right now placing a fence gate there would leave a gap that... I'm actually not sure, if a baby zombie, or baby villager could fit through. The gap is about 0.9 blocks tall. In any case, I built a railroad station as a sort of building that's connected to the settlement wall, so that's going to safely separate them with out the need for redstone (other than the iron doors). GMRE (talk) 16:15, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Honestly, I have never been able to place a block on a surface that I cannot see. To build bridges, I have to sneak to keep from falling off the edge. Sneaking lets you step slightly beyond the edge to see the side of the block on which you want to stick another block.

I confirmed that in Bedrock Edition, baby zombies and baby villagers can fit through the space between a rail and a fence gate above. Or between a rail and a fence. But they cannot fit between a rail and a fence if the fence is above a sloped rail, although they can still fit under a fence gate above a sloped rail. Apparently the bottom of the fence gate's hitbox has a gap. Amatulic (talk) 19:18, 15 April 2022 (UTC)