Minecart

For other uses, see Minecart (disambiguation).

Not to be confused with Minecraft.

Minecart

Rarity tier	Common
Renewable	Yes
Stackable	No
Size	Height: 0.7 blocks Width: 0.98 blocks
Drops	1 Minecart
Health points	Has separate system; see § Destruction

A minecart is a ridable vehicle entity that runs on rails and can be used to transport both players and mobs.

Obtaining

Once placed, minecarts can be retrieved by attacking them for some time. One attack from a pickaxe, sword, or axe is enough for a minecart to drop in item form, provided the player's attack cooldown is reset.‌^{[Java Edition only]} A minecart is also destroyed if it makes contact with a cactus, or if shot with a bow/crossbow. Critical hits are not applied to minecarts, although the particles suggest otherwise.

Crafting

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Iron Ingot

Entity loot

Minecarts with command blocks can be given to the player with the /give command or through the Creative inventory under certain conditions‌^{[Java Edition only]}; minecarts with spawners‌^{[Java Edition only]} are available only via the /summon command. Each drop 1 minecart when broken.

Usage

A minecart can be placed in the same manner as most blocks, but 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.

Crafting ingredient

Anything crafted with the minecart functions similar to a regular minecart, but cannot be ridden.

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe	Notes
Minecart with Chest	Chest + Minecart
Minecart with Furnace	Furnace + Minecart		‌[Java Edition only]
Minecart with Hopper	Hopper + Minecart
Minecart with TNT	TNT + Minecart

Transportation

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 at about 8 blocks per second while riding it, by pressing forward. If the Minecart Experiments experiment is enabled, the game rule max_minecart_speed can be used to change the max minecart speed. If a mob walks in front of a moving empty minecart, it is pulled into the cart.

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 in the action bar‌^{[Java Edition only]} or in chat‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]} for attempting to enter a fully occupied minecart.^[1]

Dismounting

Players can exit the minecart by sneaking while riding it. When a player or mob dismounts a minecart, either by choice, by breaking the minecart, or by passing over a powered activator rail, the minecart tries to find a safe ejection destination for the player one block away. First it checks the eight horizontally adjacent blocks in the following order of priority relative to direction of travel: right, left, rear right, rear left, front right, front left, rear, front. A valid destination has a block underneath with a solid (not necessarily full) top surface and a space with enough headroom and width for the passenger to fit in when standing at the center. The space can even contain liquid or have open trapdoors if the mob is slim enough, and presence of other mobs doesn't matter. If no valid destination exists on same horizontal level, the minecart then checks the blocks one above, then one below. For a player, the minecart also checks for crawlable destinations. If still none, the minecart chooses its own location. Once the minecart picks a destination, it actually ejects the passenger one block up in the air and the passenger settles down on its own. Under a low ceiling this may cause one tick of suffocation damage. The air drop exists to allow passengers to land on carpet or bottom slabs.

Behavior

Speed

Minecarts have a predefined speed limit of exactly 8 blocks per second per axis of travel. A minecart traveling diagonally can, therefore, travel up to 11.314 blocks per second.^{[note 1]} 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, and an unpowered powered rail slows down a minecart rapidly and can stop minecarts even on slopes.‌^{[BE only]} The speed decreases at a faster rate when going uphill, compared to when moving horizontally, but a riding player can still move it uphill at the lowest speed in Bedrock Edition. 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 a track on the other side, at significantly reduced energy and speed. A minecart's hitbox can skip turns if the minecart is boosted using enough powered rails.^[2]

The speed and momentum of a minecart can differ depending on whether or not it is empty, and in the case where a minecart has a container, the speed can differ depending on the quantity and type of items inside.

Moving minecarts become frozen when more than one chunk beyond the simulation distance of the nearest player, but resume their motion when a player comes within range.

Merged minecarts

This feature is exclusive to Java Edition.

Three or more minecarts can be merged by placing multiple minecarts on the same rail or by dropping them on a rail from above. Merged minecarts move as a collective, like a train, and can be useful for long-distance transport because while moving in a straight line, they do not need powered rails to keep their speed.

• Pushing merged minecarts might cause them to unmerge.
• Merged minecarts do not lose speed while traveling on straight rails.
• Corners in the rails might cause merged minecarts to unmerge.
• Merged minecarts can travel off-rail at half-speed (4 blocks/second). They can travel diagonally if the last rail is a turned rail.

Distance traveled by empty carts starting on a downward slope

This table shows the distance traveled by an unoccupied minecart, in meters, on a downward slope, 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 1.5 blocks. All distance trends based on the height seem to be logarithmic. The carts started from rest, on a slope Height blocks up.

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.^[3]

A minecart that reaches the end of a rail up against an opaque solid block bounces back, but if the block is transparent then it stops. The minecart can even bounce against an opaque block from a standstill if the rail underneath is powered. 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, packed ice, and blue ice^[4]; they can also be destroyed by coming in contact with lava, fire and cactus, causing it to drop itself as an item. The last block can be used to automatically destroy the cart and collect it (with a hopper) at the end of a track.

Uphill and downhill movement

This section describes content that will likely be removed in a future update of Java Edition.

This content has been removed in development versions for Java Edition, but the full update removing it has not been released yet.
This feature can only be accessed through the "Minecart Improvements" experimental data pack in Java Edition.

	A
	B

The cart collides with A instead of B.

A cart on an ascending rail performs its horizontal movement at a higher position, with the following effects:

• A cart traveling downhill does not collide with a block in front of it, but collides with a block one block higher.
• A cart can trigger a pressure plate or tripwire above its bounding box in this process, which can't detect the cart when checking for entities. If deactivated when the cart has not moved away, the pressure plate or tripwire is immediately retriggered.
  • If updates originating from the pressure plate or tripwire break the rail, the cart appears at the higher position.

Mobs

Most mobs can be picked up when a minecart collides with them. The following mobs, however, cannot be picked up:

• Ender dragons, wardens, and withers in both Java Edition and Bedrock Edition;
• Bats and iron golems in Java Edition
• Creakings, NPCs, agents, sulfur cubes, and 0.75% of zombified piglins^{[note 2]} in Bedrock Edition

This is much different from boats, which can be entered only by mobs smaller than the boats; even large mobs like ghasts can enter minecarts. In addition to mobs, minecarts can also pick up boats in Java Edition,^[5] and armor stands and cameras in Bedrock Edition.

A mob is picked up when a moving minecart on rails collides with the mob, or if the mob walks into a minecart on rails. Additionally, in Bedrock Edition, a minecart can pick up a mob even if stationary or off-rails. It is easier to pick up a mob when a minecart is turning. For the purposes of picking up mobs, the bounding box of a minecart is extended by 0.2 (approx. ³⁄₁₆) blocks on each direction on the X and Z axes. This means that a minecart can pick up a mob even if the mob is not intersecting the minecart's hitbox.

In Java Edition, mobs in minecarts (except unnamed endermites) don't despawn, and don't count toward the mob cap.^[6]

Mobs cannot control the minecart, unless they are a jockey in Java Edition,^[7] and cannot exit the minecart unless the minecart is destroyed or moves onto an active activator rail. In Bedrock Edition, it is also possible to force a mob out of a minecart by reeling it in using a fishing rod.

Tamed pets, as well as endermen, cannot teleport out of minecarts.^[8]

Destruction

As minecarts are not mobs, they do not have health. Instead, they have a damage system. For every 1HP of damage that would be dealt, instead 10 damage is added. Then, whenever the damage is greater than 0, it gets reduced by 1 each game tick. When the damage is greater than 40, the minecart is destroyed and dropped as an item, meaning that weapons dealing more than 4HP damage break a minecart in one attack. Players in Creative mode can always destroy a minecart in one attack, but the minecart does not drop as an item.

Sounds

Java Edition:
Minecarts use the Friendly Creatures sound category for entity-dependent sound events.^{[sound 1]}

Bedrock Edition:

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Item	Identifier	Form	Translation key
Minecart	minecart	Item	item.minecraft.minecart

Entity	Identifier	Translation key
Minecart	minecart	entity.minecraft.minecart

Bedrock Edition:

Item	Identifier	Numeric ID	Form	Translation key
Minecart	minecart	370	Item	item.minecart.name

Entity	Identifier	Numeric ID	Family	Translation key
Minecart	minecart	84	inanimate minecart	entity.minecart.name

Entity data

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

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format

Achievements

Icon		Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Gamerscore earned	Trophy type (PS)
PS4	Other
		On A Rail	Travel by minecart to a point at least 500m in a single direction from where you started.	Travel by minecart 500 blocks in a straight line away from the player's starting point.	40	Gold

Videos

History

Java Edition

Java Edition Infdev
20100618							Added minecarts.
							Minecarts are not rideable but instead are used to store things in.
							Right-clicking minecarts opens them like a chest (with the container called "Minecart"). Filling them up makes the dirt layer inside them rise.
20100624							The entity model and item texture of minecarts have been changed.
							The minecart mechanics have been changed to being rideable, removing their ability to store items.
							Minecarts now render a chest inside for unknown reasons.
Java Edition Alpha
v1.0.4							Removed the phantom chest from minecarts.
							A sitting animation for riding minecarts has been added.
v1.0.14							Minecarts are now used to craft minecart with furnace and minecart with chest.
							A glitch creates a new method of speeding up minecarts, known as "Boosting." Placing two minecarts parallel to each other and moving in the same direction increases the speed of both carts.
v1.2.2							Minecarts now appear to other players and can be ridden in multiplayer.
							Minecarts are no longer fully solid - they no longer block movement, and can no longer be stood on top of.
v1.2.3							Players in minecarts and boats now receive terrain updates.
Java Edition Beta
1.5							Minecarts now break faster with hands.
							Powered rails have been introduced, which enables minecarts to move automatically.
							The detector rails have been introduced for use in detecting minecarts. Prior to this update, minecarts 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			Test Build 3				Boosters no longer work.
							A minecart now transfers any fall damage it suffers onto its rider and is not destroyed upon impact.
1.8			Pre-release				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.
			Beta 1.9 Prerelease 6				The texture of minecarts has changed slightly.
1.3.1			12w15a				Minecarts can now be shot out from dispensers.
			12w21a				While sitting inside of a minecart, pushing the directional keys makes it move the direction player is pressing. This only works while the minecart is sitting on rails.
			12w21b				Minecarts can now be destroyed in one hit in Creative mode.
							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.
1.5			13w02a				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.
							Minecarts are now used to craft TNT minecarts.
			13w03a				Minecarts are now used to craft hopper minecarts.
			13w06a				Added minecart with spawner.
1.6.1			13w16a				Minecarts are now dismounted using the sneak key; previously, this was achieved by right clicking on the minecart a second time.
1.6.2			release				A player in a moving minecart no longer turns with the minecart.
1.7.2			13w39a				Added minecart with command block.
1.8			14w11a				Minecart physics have 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 been improved.
			14w17a				All changes to old minecart physics used before 14w11a have been reverted.
1.9.1			pre2				Extreme typos in minecarts with hoppers and chests, reading "container.minecart'' have been fixed.
1.11			16w32a				The player's hunger bar is now visible when riding in a minecart.
1.14			18w43a				The textures of minecarts have been changed.
			19w13a				Minecarts now move much slower when pushed along standard rails using the W key, even slower on unpowered powered rails, and cannot be pushed off of unpowered powered rails without the player looking at a certain angle.
1.16			20w09a				Minecart now checks dismount position height against entity height.
			20w16a				Minecarts no longer have subtitles for movement.
			20w18a				Mobs in minecarts no longer despawn.
1.17			20w45a				Minecarts can now move in water.
1.18			pre2				Minecarts no longer contain the hidden dirt layer left over from their introduction in Infdev.[9]
1.19			22w13a				Minecarts no longer drop when breaking a minecart with chest, hopper, furnace, or TNT.[10]
1.20			23w16a				Sniffers can now enter minecarts.
1.21.2			24w33a				Pressing the movement controls while riding a boat or a saddled pig that has been picked up by a minecart no longer moves the minecart at a high speed.[11]
1.21.2 Experiment Minecart Improvements			24w33a				The speed of minecarts is now determined by the game rule minecartMaxSpeed, which is set to a default of 8.
							Whether or not the player follows the rotation of minecarts is now controlled by the accessibility setting "Rotate with Minecarts".
							Minecarts can no longer be placed by players or dispensers if the spot is already occupied by another minecart. Dispensers simply drop the minecart as an item if this is the case.
							Minecarts now retain their vertical momentum when its track ends with a slope, and now visually correspond to it by tilting while in the air.
							Minecarts no longer make any movement noise while in the air.

Bedrock Edition

Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.8.0			build 2				Added minecarts.
			build 3				Minecarts now ride smoother.
v0.13.0			build 1				Sounds for minecarts have been added.
			build 2				Minecarts now stack on top of each other.
v0.14.0			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 textures of minecarts have been changed.

Legacy Console Edition

Legacy Console Edition
Xbox 360	Xbox One	PS3	PS4	PS Vita	Wii U	Switch
TU1	CU1	1.00	1.00	1.00	Patch 1	1.0.1	Added minecarts.
							Minecarts are now twice as fast compared to other editions, with a maximum speed of 16 blocks per second.
TU12							Minecarts are now slower.
							Minecarts can now be placed by dispensers.
TU13							Minecarts have had their speed increased again.
TU19	CU7	1.12	1.12	1.12			Minecarts are now used to craft TNT minecarts and hopper minecarts.
							A player in a moving minecart no longer turns with the minecart.
							Minecarts are now dismounted using the sneak key; previously, this was achieved by pressing use on the minecart a second time.
TU20	CU8	1.13	1.13	1.13			A player in a moving minecart once again turns with the minecart.
TU21	CU9	1.14	1.14	1.14			The minecart limit has been increased.
TU31	CU19	1.22	1.22	1.22	Patch 3		Minecart sounds have been updated.
TU34	CU22	1.25	1.25	1.25	Patch 4		An option to enable or disable minecart sounds has been added to the audio settings.
			1.90				The texture of minecarts has been changed.

New Nintendo 3DS Edition

New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0							Added minecarts.

Data history

Issues

Issues relating to "Minecart" are maintained on the bug tracker. Issues should be reported and viewed 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 can teleport to another minecart while sitting in a minecart by right-clicking a minecart in their range. This can be used as an elevator to quickly rise up when minecarts are placed on top of each other.
• 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.
• A minecart (alongside rails and powered rails) are used as Steve's Side-Special in the crossover fighting game Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
• Minecarts are twice as fast in Legacy Console Edition.

Gallery

Screenshots

• 
  A minecart opened in Minecraft Infdev.
• 
  A minecart filled in Minecraft Infdev.
• 
  A pig inside a burning minecart.
• 
  The removed hidden dirt texture inside the bed of the minecart.
• 
  Pre-1.9 bug where player's hand was broken after changing view while in minecart. This also applied to boats, horses and pigs.
• 
  Minecart booster.
• 
  Minecarts being stacked on each other.
• 
  Villager in a minecart.
• 
  Ari in a minecart.
• 
  A camera in a minecart.

Mojang screenshots

• 
  The first image Jeb released.^[12]
• 
  The first image of minecarts in Pocket Edition.
• 
  An image of two minecarts with spawners and unimplemented minecarts with dispensers.
• 
  Minecarts can be edited to show any block inside, and can also be edited to be invisible.
• 
  Sunny riding a minecart into a Nether portal.

In other media

• 
  The diamond minecart, a unique minecart featured in Minecraft: Story Mode.
• 
  Ditto in item form
• 
  A minecart as it appears in Minecraft Dungeons.
• 
  Minecart with Ice Cubes
• 
  Minecart with Stone
• 
  Several mobs, most notably a warden and the Arch-Illager, riding minecarts.
• 
  A chicken jockey trying to keep up with the aforementioned train.
• 
  Several frogs grimacing in a minecart.
• 
  A skeleton, axolotl, strider, and the Arch-Illager riding together.
• 
  A snifflet in a minecart.
• 
  Two minecarts, as depicted on Minecoin gift cards.
• 
  A wooden minecart, featured in the Trails & Tales Event.
• 
  A functional minecart in the Lego set, The Badlands Mineshaft.
• 
  Minecart concept art for A Minecraft Movie.
• 
  Minecarts in A Minecraft Movie.
• 
  Official artwork of a Minecart in Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds.
• 
  A playset with a player riding a minecart
• 
  A minecart as seen in Minecraft Earth
• 
  A Hot Wheels minecart.

See also

• Boat
• Transportation

Notes

References

External links

• "Taking Inventory: Minecart" by Duncan Geere – Minecraft.net, September 6, 2019.