Minecart with Chest

Minecarts with Chests (also called Chest Minecarts or Storage Minecarts) function like a minecart while being able to store and transport goods. The player may not ride in them.

To use a Minecart with Chest, the player must place it on any type of rail block. This will bring up an interface the same as a Chest's. Breaking a Minecart with Chest will cause everything inside to be dumped out as well as a minecart and a chest. Since a Minecart with Chest's recipe is only 1x2 spaces, it can be recrafted without a Crafting Table.

Minecarts with Chests occur naturally in abandoned mine shafts.

Physics
The physical properties of Minecarts with Chest are equal to those of Minecarts with Hopper, i.e. the boost they gain from Powered Rails is dependent on their load. For example, from a 1 powered rail starter track, an empty minecart with chest will go 64 blocks, but a full minecart with chest will go only 16 blocks (opposed to 8 blocks for an empty normal minecart and 80 blocks for an occupied normal minecart). Thus, even an empty minecart with chest doesn't travel as far as an occupied minecart after being boosted. This may be a problem as most tracks designed for occupied carts may not have enough powered rail for empty carts or storage carts. However, they can be pushed by powered minecarts faster than occupied carts.

Another physical property of storage minecarts is their high ability to be stacked. Whereas only 3 chests can fit in an area 3 blocks tall, up to 4 storage minecarts can fit in the same area. Because of this, many players choose to use minecart storage because of its compactness. On the other hand, stacked minecarts are very delicate and can fall apart or make noise if touched. A solution to this is to place guardrails in front of the minecarts.



Here, a series of mob heads are used as guardrails to prevent the player from touching the storage minecarts. Using a method such as this, one can stack up to 24 storage minecarts in the same 6x3 area 8 normal (12 if you have a non transparent block or nothing above the third layer), accessible chests could be placed.

Trivia

 * Storage minecarts cannot be destroyed by an Ender Dragon, making storing items in the End with the Ender Dragon alive feasible. This is because the storage minecart is considered an entity.
 * A piston can push a block into a storage minecart that is not on a rail if there is a block behind the minecart, such that the block and the minecart occupy the same space. Right clicking the block will open the minecart's chest, effectively allowing chests to be hidden inside walls.
 * Storage minecarts don't have an opening animation, unlike regular chests.
 * Minecarts cannot have double chests.