Minecart

Minecart

Rarity	Common
Renewable	Yes
Stackable	No
Internal ID	JE: 42 BE: 84
Network ID	JE: 10
Entity ID	minecart
Drops	Minecart (1)
Health points	6
Data value	dec: 328 hex: 148 bin: 101001000
Namespaced ID	minecart

This article is about the rideable minecart. For other uses, see Minecart (disambiguation).

	“	Minecarts were added to Minecraft during the game's Infdev phase, on 18 June 2010. Originally they were used solely for storage – they acted like a chest. But less than a week later that decision was reversed and they became rideable. Over time, new features were added – furnace and storage minecarts, TNT and hopper minecarts, and even minecarts with command blocks.	„
		— Duncan Geere

A minecart is a train-like vehicle entity that runs on rails.

Obtaining

Minecarts can be retrieved by attacking them for some time. A minecart is also destroyed if it makes contact with a cactus, or if shot with a bow and arrow.

Crafting

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Iron Ingot

Other minecarts

Minecarts with chests, with hoppers, with furnaces, and with TNT each drop 1 minecart & 1 chest, hopper, furnace, or TNT, respectively. Minecarts with TNT that are detonated will not drop; the minecart is destroyed in the blast.

Minecarts with command blocks can be given to the player only with the /give command. Minecarts with spawners and minecarts with command blocks each drop 1 minecart when broken and can be obtained only using commands.

Usage

A rideable minecart on rails surrounded by wood slabs

A minecart can be placed in the same manner as most blocks, but can be placed only on top of a rail. Once placed, it may be derailed by pushing it off the end of the track. After this, it can be railed again by placing a rail directly below it, or pushing it onto a track.

Transportation

Steve riding a minecart

Minecarts can be ridden by pressing the "use" control on them. Once inside, an external impulse may be needed to make the minecart start moving. The player can slowly move the minecart forward while riding it, by pressing forward. If a mob walks in front of an empty minecart, it is pulled into the cart.

Players can exit the minecart by pressing sneak, however if there is only one block of headroom above the cart, the player takes 1 of suffocation damage. When a minecart is exited, it searches for an adjacent or diagonal 2×2×3 area to put the player 1.5 blocks away from the cart. If none are available, the player is deposited directly above the minecart. Consequently, the player falls inside the minecart.

After rolling off of the end of a track, a minecart can be pushed around on open blocks. If a minecart is pushed onto or falls onto tracks, it "snaps" to those tracks. When riding a minecart, if the minecart lands on a rail, the player does not take any fall damage.

Unlike with beds, there is no message above the hotbar for attempting to enter a fully occupied minecart.

Behavior

Speed

Minecarts have a predefined speed limit of 8 m/s per axis of travel. (1 block = 1 meter; 8 m/s = 28.8 km/hr.) A minecart traveling diagonally can therefore travel up to 11.314 m/s (i.e. the square root of the quantity 8² + 8²) When a minecart comes to a turn it moves diagonally across that turn.

Powered rails powered by redstone give minecarts a boost of speed. Speed is gradually decreased if there are no powered rails to assist its movement. The speed decreases at a faster rate when going uphill, compared to when moving horizontally. A minecart does not need powered rails to assist its movement down a hill.

Anything in the way of the minecart brings it to a stop. Once a minecart has left the track, it rapidly decelerates within one or two blocks. When mobs touch a minecart, they affect it in the same way a player would, i.e. mobs that move up against a still cart set it in motion.

If a minecart is moving fast enough, it can skip across one block without a track and reattach to track on the other side, at significantly reduced energy and speed.

In Legacy Console Edition, minecarts are much faster than in Java Edition.

Merged minecarts

Merged minecarts are two or more minecarts merged. Their special feature is their odd way of losing speed. When coming off a track, merged minecarts initially lose their speed to around walking speed. But after first contact, they no longer lose speed.

This way they can be used to cross certain distances when the player's only goal is to not actively walk toward the player's goal / target. Or when the player doesn't have enough resources to cover the complete distance, this measure can be considered. Note: for this concept to work, at least 3 minecarts must be merged. Doing this can detach the minecarts by pushing one off of the rails, or the one the player is riding might get stuck on a tight turn. Speed may decrease when merged. This can be used to get the "On A Rail" achievement.

Unoccupied carts, incline with boost

This table shows the distance traveled by an unoccupied minecart on an incline, with a boost (or no boost). The most efficient way is to use only 1 boost at the bottom of the incline on the flat surface. Using 2 increases distance by about 20% or 1.5m. All distance trends based on the height seem to be logarithmic. The carts started from rest, on an incline (at Height).

-Height-	No Boost	Bottom	Bottom and Top	All boosts on incline and bottom
1	2.77m	8.77	10.8	10.8
2	4.59m	9.59	10.83	13.37
3	5.81m	9.81	11.66	15.12
4	7.04m	10.04	12.46	16.95
5	7.87m	10.87	12.29	17.95
10	11.65m	13.38	15.12	21.68
100	15.87m	17.05	17.54	25.34

Collision

Minecarts are about the same size as a block (1×1). Because of this, a ladder, door or trapdoor prevents it from falling down a 1×1 hole.

Carts on rails also ignore collision in certain situations. A cart traveling uphill, downhill, or on a curve with a block placed in front of it, goes through the block.

A player or mob riding in a minecart does not collide with or suffocate in any transparent blocks, but suffocates inside opaque blocks.

Minecarts are completely unaffected by ice, blue ice and packed ice.

Mobs

Most mobs can ride minecarts, but only some types of mobs can control them. Mobs cannot exit the minecart unless the minecart is destroyed or moves onto an active activator rail. Endermen therefore are unable to teleport out of minecarts.

A mob can ride a minecart by pushing the mob onto a minecart, or by the mob moving into the minecart's space. Some mobs are able to nudge minecarts while in them, like players.

Tamed wolves follow the player when the player rides a minecart.

The player can bump a medium slime in a minecart, rendering it unable to attack. However, a large slime can still attack.

A spider jockey riding a minecart automatically accelerates the minecart.

Boats

When a boat is placed in a minecart, the minecart travels faster on rails, approximately as fast as on powered rails. The movement in the boat minecart is glitchy and moving forward with the W key moves the cart backward relative to the player, and vice versa for moving backward with the S key. The minecart also moves on rail-less ground at a crawling speed, but it does not float in water despite being in a boat.

Using this glitch can be far more resource efficient, since the boat minecart can move at the speed of a powered rail track on flat ground and on slopes. Another physics glitch with the boat minecart is the extreme reduction in friction when the minecart is on rails, which is similar to the lack of friction when a boat is riding on ice. This glitch can be done in survival without cheats simply by pushing a minecart into a boat on the track.

Sounds

Sound	Subtitle	Namespaced ID	Subtitle ID	Source	Pitch	Volume	Attenuation distance
	Minecart rolls	entity.minecart.riding	subtitles.entity.minecart.riding	?	?	?	16
	No subtitle	entity.minecart.inside	(Plays when inside of the minecart)	?	?	?	16

Data values

Entity data

See also: Chunk format

Minecarts have entity data associated with them that contain various properties of the entity.

• Entity data
  • Tags common to all entities see Template:Nbt inherit/entity/template
  • Tags common to all minecarts see Template:Nbt inherit/vehicle/template

Achievements

Main article: Achievements

Icon	Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Availability				Xbox points earned	Trophy type (PS)
				Xbox	PS	Bedrock	Nintendo
	On A Rail	Travel by minecart to a point at least 500m in a single direction from where you started.	Travel by minecart to a point at least 500 blocks from where the player started. Distance is measured in a straight line.	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	40G	Gold

Video

Note: This video is outdated, as shows only 3 varieties of minecarts. There are currently 6 varieties.

History

Java Edition Infdev
June 18, 2010					Added minecarts. They are not rideable, but instead are used to store things in. Right-clicking them opens them like a chest (with the container called "Minecart". Filling them up makes the dirt layer inside them rise.
June 24, 2010					The minecart's texture has now been changed.
					The minecart mechanics have now been changed to rideable minecarts, removing their ability to store items.
Java Edition Alpha
v1.0.4					Added sitting animation for riding minecarts.
v1.0.14					Minecarts are now used to craft furnace and storage minecarts.
Java Edition Beta
1.5					Minecarts now break faster with hands.
					Powered rails have now been introduced, which enables minecarts to move automatically, although previous methods of boosting no longer works, or does not work as effectively.
					The detector rail switch has been introduced for use in detecting minecarts. Prior to this update, carts were detected by using pressure plates in line with cart tracks. This had the often undesirable effect of dramatically slowing or even stopping the minecart, which limited the use of this design mostly to boosters.
1.6		?			A minecart now transfers any fall damage it suffers onto its rider and is not destroyed upon impact.
1.8		?			If the player punches a minecart when descending from a jump, it shows the critical hit animation. This also happens if the player punches the cart while still in it.
Java Edition
1.0.0		Beta 1.9 Prerelease			C418 posted a sound showing the sound that minecarts make.
1.3.1		12w21b			The player no longer spawns on top/inside of the minecart after getting out; instead the player gets out a few blocks away. Also, the player can nudge a stationary minecart while inside it to move onto a powered rail, etc.
1.4.2		12w38b			Sounds for minecarts have now been added.
1.5		13w02a			The first image Jeb released. Minecarts can now be edited with a third party program to show any block inside of it (it does not take on the characteristics of this block), as well as make it take on the characteristics of any cart.
					Minecart types no longer all share the same entity ID – Minecart – and are now no longer distinguished by a Type field. They have now been given separate entity IDs.
					Minecarts are now used to craft TNT minecarts.
		13w03a			Minecarts are now used to craft hopper minecarts.
1.7.2		13w39a			Added minecart with command block.
1.8		14w11a			Minecart physics have now been changed - they now go faster and further, can derail at corners if going too fast and refuse to go uphill and they can also (if going fast enough) go over 1 block.
					The collision and position handling of minecarts have now been improved.
		14w17a			All changes to old minecart physics used before 14w11a have now been reverted.
1.9.1		?			Typos in minecarts with hoppers and chests, reading "container.minecart'' have now been fixed.
1.11		16w32a			The entity ID has now been changed from MinecartRideable to minecart.
1.13		17w47a			Prior to The Flattening, this item's numeral ID was 328.
1.14		18w43a			The texture of minecarts has now been changed.
		?			Minecarts now move much slower when pushed along standard rails using the W key, even slower on unpowered golden rails, and cannot be pushed off of unpowered golden rails without the player looking at a certain angle.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.8.0		build 2			Added minecarts.
		build 3			Minecarts now ride smoother.
0.13.0		build 1			Sounds for minecarts have now been added.
		build 2			Minecarts now stack on top of each other.
0.14.0		build 1			Minecarts can now be used to craft storage, TNT, and hopper minecarts.
Bedrock Edition
1.10.0		beta 1.10.0.3			The texture of minecarts has now been changed.
Legacy Console Edition
TU1	CU1	1.0	Patch 1		Added minecarts.
					Minecarts are now twice the speed than in other editions.
TU12					Minecarts are now slower.
TU13					Minecarts are now faster again.
TU21	CU9	1.14			The minecart limit has now been increased.
TU31	CU19	1.22	Patch 3		Minecart sounds have now been updated.
PlayStation 4 Edition
1.90					The texture of minecarts has now been changed.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0					Added minecarts.

Issues

Issues relating to "Minecart" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Trivia

• Minecarts appear to float above the track, as their model has no wheels.
• If the player views their inventory while riding in a minecart, they appear sitting down in mid-air.
• The player is able to teleport to another minecart while sitting in a minecart by right clicking a minecart in their range.
• If the sound is muted in the options while riding a minecart, and then turned back up, the minecart no longer makes noise in the client until the player exits the minecart.
• If a saddled pig is riding a minecart, the player can ride the pig. Doing so causes the minecart to be able to ride freely at the player's walking speed. It is unknown whether this is a glitch.
• It seems that hunger does not deplete while inactive in a minecart (at least in normal difficulty).

Gallery

• 

  A pig inside a burning minecart

• 

  Minecarts being stacked on each other

• 

  A Minecart opened in Minecraft Infdev

• 

  A Minecart filled in Minecraft Infdev

References

Items

View at: Template:Items/content [edit]

Entities

View at: Template:Entities/content [edit]