Tutorials/Minecarts

This is a list of mechanisms to prevent empty minecarts from leaving the area. Add your own, if you have created and tested a different one. Minecart runaway preventions are a subset of Mechanisms.

Solution A (working in single player - depends on lag in multiplayer)
Set up the above layout and imagine that the long track (where no cart should go alone) is to the left. To the right is a loop with a booster or any other system sending carts with or without player.

Optionally join the tracks back to a single track as shown above.

Below the track (underground) wire both stone plates with redstone and connect them to the middle switch on the left. When empty carts come from the right lower track, they won't trigger the plates - so they just turn with a loop and return on the above track to the right.

When a player or monster is in the cart, it will trigger the plates and the switch on the left switches. So the non empty cart leaves the system to the left.

This mechanism does not force a minecart to leave the track (onto a stone plate) and therefore needs no additional booster to push it on the track again.

Solution B
The construction above suits best at the beginning of a long track. The cart (empty or not) stops at the lower track at the stone plate. This is connected to a mechanism which will send a booster along the above track to accelerate the occupied cart back to the track. If the cart is empty it waits for a passenger.

This mechanism is faulty when players approach the cart too closely. It could be pushed to the booster section and will break the setup. Either make sure the player boards the minecart from a distance of one block, or consider other layouts (like Solution A).