Powered Rail

Renewable	Yes
Stackable	Yes (64)
Tool
Blast resistance	0.7
Hardness	0.7
Luminant	No
Transparent	Yes
Flammable	No
Catches fire from lava	No

A powered rail is a type of rail that is used to increase or decrease the velocity of moving minecarts.

Obtaining[edit]

Breaking[edit]

Powered rails can be crafted and previously-placed powered rails can be broken with bare hands or any tool, dropping themselves as items.

Block	Powered Rail
Hardness	0.7
Tool
Breaking time^[A]
Default	1.05
Wooden	0.55
Stone	0.3
Iron	0.2
Diamond	0.15
Netherite	0.15
Golden	0.1

↑ Times are for unenchanted tools as wielded by players with no status effects, measured in seconds. For more information, see Breaking § Speed.

A powered rail also drops as an item when the block beneath it is removed, water or lava flows over it,‌^{[Java Edition only]} or a piston moves it into a space with no floor below it.

Chest loot[edit]

Item	Structure	Container	Quantity	Chance
Java Edition
Powered Rail	Mineshaft	Chest	1–4	27.1%
Bedrock Edition
Powered Rail	Mineshaft	Chest	1–4	27.1%

Crafting[edit]

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Gold Ingot + Stick + Redstone Dust	6

Usage[edit]

A powered rail can be used as a rail and as a redstone component.

To place a powered rail, use a powered rail item while pointing at a surface facing the space the powered rail should occupy. A powered rail can be placed on:

the top of any full solid opaque block (stone, dirt, blocks of gold, etc.), including full-block mechanism components (command blocks, dispensers, droppers, note blocks, and redstone lamps)
the top of a hopper, upside-down slab, or upside-down stairs.

A powered rail cannot be attached to the side or bottom of any block, but attempting to make such an attachment may cause the powered rail to attach to the top of a block under the destination space. For example, if a fence is on the ground, attempting to attach a powered rail to the side of the fence causes the powered rail to be attached to the top of the ground next to the fence instead.

When placed, a powered rail configures itself to line up with any adjacent rails (including activator rails, detector rails, and other powered rails), as well as adjacent rails one block up. If there are two adjacent rails on non-opposite sides, or three or more adjacent rails, a powered rail lines up in the east-west direction. If there are no adjacent rails, a powered rail lines up in the north-south direction (but if a rail is later placed to the east or west, the powered rail re-orients itself in the east-west direction even if it is already connected to another rail to the north or south). If a rail it would line up with is one block up, a powered rail slants upward toward it (with multiple options to slant upward to, a powered rail "prefers", in order: west, east, south, and north). Other configurations can be created by placing and removing various rails.

It cannot be placed suspended in midair, even with commands, which is not unintentional.^[1]

Rail[edit]

Powered rails (and other rails) can be used as "roads" for minecarts. A minecart that enters a powered rail's space from either end of the powered rail continues to move in the direction the powered rail is facing, but its speed may change depending on whether the powered rail is active or not (see below). A minecart that enters a powered rail's space from the side turns east or south (depending on the powered rail's orientation), or in the downward direction for a slanted powered rail.

Redstone component[edit]

Powered rails can be used to affect the speed of minecarts that travel over them.

Activation

A powered rail is a redstone mechanism and can be activated by:

an adjacent active power component (for example, a redstone torch, a block of redstone, a daylight sensor, etc.)
an adjacent powered block (strongly-powered or weakly-powered)
a powered redstone comparator or redstone repeater facing the powered rail
powered redstone dust configured to point at the powered rail; a powered rail is not activated by adjacent powered redstone dust that is a directionless "dot" or configured to point in another direction.

An activated powered rail also activates any adjacent powered rails it is connected to, up to eight away from the original activation source. Thus a single activation source can activate up to 17 rails (one original in the middle and eight on either side). An activated powered rail does not activate non-connected adjacent rails.

Behavior

An active powered rail:

increases the speed of a moving minecart in the direction it is already moving. Specifically, let the speed in both the X and Z directions (meters / tick) combined be "speed". If speed > 0.01, then every tick the minecart is passing over the powered rail, it's x velocity is increased by (xspeed * 0.06 / speed) and it's z velocity is increased by (zspeed * 0.06 / speed)
accelerate a non-moving minecart away from a solid opaque block the powered rail is facing (so a non-moving minecart moves away from the block when the powered rail activates, and a moving minecart bounces off a block an active powered rail is facing because it stops and then gets accelerated away)

An inactive powered rail reduces the speed of a moving minecart, usually stopping it within one block's distance even on a downward-slanted track. If a slanted powered rail activates with a non-moving minecart on it, the minecart starts moving downward (because it is no longer being braked by an inactive powered rail) and is then accelerated downward.

Powered rails cannot increase the speed of a minecart to more than 8 blocks per second on either the north-south or east-west axis. The speeds that can be achieved with varying numbers of powered rails or intervals of normal rails between powered rails is complex -- for a thorough discussion, see Tutorials/Minecarts.

Sounds[edit]

Java Edition:

Subtitle	Source	Description	Namespaced ID	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
Block broken	Blocks	Breaking the block	`block.metal.break`	`subtitles.block.generic.break`	1.0	1.2	16
None^{[sound 1]}	Blocks	Falling on the block with fall damage	`block.metal.fall`	None^{[sound 1]}	0.5	1.25	16
Block breaking	Blocks	Mining the block	`block.metal.hit`	`subtitles.block.generic.hit`	0.25	0.75	16
Block placed	Blocks	Placing the block	`block.metal.place`	`subtitles.block.generic.place`	1.0	1.2	16
Footsteps	Blocks	Walking on the block	`block.metal.step`	`subtitles.block.generic.footsteps`	0.15	1.5	16

↑ ^a ^b MC-177082

Bedrock Edition: ^{[needs in-game testing]}

Sound	Source	Description	Namespaced ID	Volume	Pitch
?	?	Breaking the block	`dig.metal`	?	1.2
?	?	Falling on the block with fall damage	`fall.metal`	?	?
?	?	Mining the block	`hit.metal`	?	0.75
?	?	Jumping from the block	`jump.metal`	?	?
?	?	Falling on the block without fall damage	`land.metal`	?	?
?	?	Walking on the block	`step.metal`	?	?
?	?	Placing the block	`use.metal`	?	1.2

Data values[edit]

ID[edit]

Java Edition:

Name	Namespaced ID	Block tags (JE)	Item tags (JE)	Translation key
Powered Rail	`powered_rail`	`prevent_mob_spawning_inside` `rails`	`rails`	`block.minecraft.powered_rail`

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Namespaced ID	Numeric ID	Translation key
Powered Rail	`golden_rail`	`27`	`tile.golden_rail.name`

Block data[edit]

‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}

Bits	Values
0x1 0x2 0x4	A three-bit field storing a value from 0 to 5: 0: flat track going north-south 1: flat track going west-east 2: sloped track ascending to the east 3: sloped track ascending to the west 4: sloped track ascending to the north 5: sloped track ascending to the south
0x8	Set if rail is active.

Block states[edit]

Java Edition:

Name	Default value	Allowed values	Description
powered	`false`	`false` `true`	True if rail is activated.
shape	`north_south`	`east_west` `north_south`	Specifies the rail's orientation.
shape	`north_south`	`ascending_east` `ascending_north` `ascending_south` `ascending_west`	A rail that ascends toward the direction noted. For example, an `ascending_west` rail is a straight rail that goes upward from the east toward the west.
waterlogged‌^{[upcoming: JE 1.17]}	`false`	`false` `true`	True if rail is waterlogged.

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Default value	Allowed values	Description
rail_data_bit	`false`	`false` `true`	True if rail is activated.
rail_direction	`0`	`0` `1` `2` `3` `4` `5`	The rail is not ascending.
rail_direction	`0`	`6` `7` `8` `9`	A rail ascends.

Video[edit]

History[edit]

Java Edition Beta

1.5 Added powered rails.

1.6 ? The effectiveness of powered rails has now been increased as a response to fixing the minecart booster bug.

Java Edition

1.5 ? The item form of the powered rail has changed from to .

1.8 14w10a Powered rails with numerical metadata variants 6, 7, 14 and 15, which are inaccessible through normal gameplay or even commands and as such require the use of external editors to exist, now have a missing texture . Their appearances prior to this point were unknown.

14w25a

Powered rails are now defined via block states rather than by numerical metadata. Prior to this version, the numerical metadata variants of the powered rail were as follows:

	DV	Description
	0	Unpowered north-south
	1	Unpowered east-west
	2	Unpowered ascending east
	3	Unpowered ascending west
	4	Unpowered ascending north
	5	Unpowered ascending south
	6-7	Inaccessible - behavior unknown
	8	Powered north-south
	9	Powered east-west
	10	Powered ascending east
	11	Powered ascending west
	12	Powered ascending north
	13	Powered ascending south
	14-15	Inaccessible - behavior unknown

14w26a Powered rails with metadata values 6, 7, 14 and 15 have now been completely removed from the game.

1.9 15w44a Powered rails can now be found in mineshaft chest minecarts.

1.11 16w32b All rail types' hitbox heights are decreased from a full block to a half block.

1.13 17w47a The ID of powered rails has been changed from golden_rail to powered_rail.