Compact Auto Minecart Station
| YouTube Video (view on YouTube) |
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Sethbling's design automatically starts the minecart and ejects the player, using a combination of redstone wiring and tripwire. Unfortunately this design uses a glitch where a person on a minecart that hits a cactus will get ejected to the side, 'phasing' through the cactus while the minecart gets collected by the hopper. In minecraft 1.6 this was fixed such that when you hit the cactus you appear right in front of it (at the place where you hit), thus leaving you on the rails and making you pick up the minecart instead of it going into the hoppers.
| Train Hub in 1.6.2 showcase (view on YouTube) |
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A slight variation that uses lava instead along with pistons is available and does not rely on any glitches, thus is considered to be safe for use in the latest versions of minecraft (1.6+). When the player arrives in a minecart, the minecart gets broken by the lava and collected by the hoppers while the player is pushed out of the exit using a glass block connected to a sticky piston. While slightly more redstone intensive than Sethbling's design (which was exceptionally simple), it does not have any problems associated with it and is thus recommended for anyone playing in 1.6+. If you are playing in 1.5.2 or below (and not planning on updating), Sethbling's design is definitely better.
And the tutorial of how to build it:
| Train Hub in 1.6.2 tutorial (view on YouTube) |
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Automated Single-Car People Mover Stop
Good example of a small station:
| YouTube Video (view on YouTube) |
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Direction changing:
| YouTube Video (view on YouTube) |
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These are more complex and not as annoying. It is possible to minimize the amount of powered rails used. Also this can be implemented on any server, it doesn't require weeks of experimenting. This is recommended for beginners.
Automated Single-Cart Two-way Small Station (Tripwire)
An easy and effective station. The tripwire toggles the mine cart between 2 different routes, the cart either moves in circles, awaiting a passenger. When a passenger is present, tripwire will activate and cart will move in another route away from the station.
Major Multi-Car Train Station
NOTE: This is for people with lots of resources. If you want to do it for fun, use Too Many Items or Creative Mode. For simple quick transport, use the Single-Cart Station.
NOTE: Really complicated, requires a good knowledge of redstone wiring. BE WARNED.
NOTE: On 1.3 Snapshot, Many minecarts in same rails will cause linking.
Here is how to make a working train station and powered rail system. Works best for SMP.
What you will need to build a train station :
- 200+ Redstone dust (You may need more depending how big it is).
- 64+ Gold ingots (For powered rails depending on your decision).
- 100+ Iron ingots (For rails and tools).
- 1+ Stone Pressure Plate (Use wooden plates for ticket collectors shown below).
- Lots of Wood (2 stacks or more).
- 500+ building material (cobblestone, stone, brick, dirt, etc...)
Note: Iron and gold amounts vary on the size of the station.
Station Construction
This is one of the most important parts. Firstly, determine the size and structure of your station. You can have a massive central terminal with many platforms and on top, have ferry piers and light rail and etc. or a simple humble station with a 5-car light rail. For the test experiment, the platform only fits 3 passenger cars. You can include luggage cars in front or at the back. But to build the platform, you need a large open area. Also, determine whether your platform is a side platform or an island platform.
Platform
Now, start the boarding area. The track below the platform will ALL be powered rails. You should include extra powered rails beyond the platform for luggage cars. Before the platform, have another set of powered rails(not connected to platform track). Make a station box across from the platform with levers controlling both sets of powered rails, and place a station attendant here. Before the non-platform set of powered rails, have a room set into the side so another attendant can push the carts in an emergency.
Platform diagram
Ticket Machines, Booths, and Turnstyles
At a ticket booth, have a person behind a glass screen with a 1x1 hole, with the stated price and destination above the hole. For a ticket turnstyle, have a series of iron doors separated by walls with holes in the bottom. Below the holes, have pits that open out into a room. Below each pit, have a wooden pressure plate connected to the door(preferably under) with a person standing next to it to collect the ticket. The ticket can be anything. Another idea is to have a separate room with redstone connecting the iron door in the waiting room. In the staff room can be a lever which when pressed will open the door. Finally, have controlled water flowing through a 1 block high gap which flows into the staff room (be careful of redstone.) Now, patrons can drop "tickets" into the water and when it reaches the staff, they can open the door. Enjoy!
Turnstyle diagram
Keeping Maximum Speed
On the main rail, make sure that you have 1 powered rail (on) every 8 blocks or if you rather you can only have powered rails but it will take much more redstone. This will make sure that free carts do not slow down. If you are a super-tycoon, this will not be really troubling.
Payoff
If well made, ticket fees will give a considerable profit on SMP, possibly even giving you enough resources to build a massive subway network like London's Underground (The Tube), taking vast amounts of people to various places.
EDIT: It is possible to do this mega rail thing with small single-cart stops. Instead of going through a large amount of iron picks doing these stations, use a simple single-cart network.
Note: Don't get excited, this is really complicated. These use lots of resources. Not for beginning players.
Hopper Ticket System
Using the new Hopper, all the tickets (or other fees) thrown into the ticket machine could be pushed with a piston into a hopper on top of a chest, giving the owner the tickets back! (or extra money!)
Things you could add
If your train station gets really big, you could add stuff like these:
- Maps in Item Frames. This can show people where they are going.
- Shops. A small trading station where you can buy and sell things from a server user. You could also add more shops that use Villagers for trading purposes.
- A mini restaurant. The meals could be cooked meat and the drinks could be Potions.
- A goods station. You could use this to send storage carts to your friends.
- Some Ender Chests for secure transport of goods, even though this cannot be used to send items to others.
- A clock in an item frame.
- For some added fun make mobs occasionally fall to their deaths, giving free items.
Pictures
And on Pocket Edition...
As you may know, there was no rails in the Pocket Edition. (Rails were added in 0.8.0 Alpha). BUT, you can make a cool subway system with absolutely no redstone. Make a 2x3xn corridor, put fences in the middle and fly! You can make stations by just putting a door on both sides, building stairs, corridors and all that subway stuff. And if there's something you just CAN'T do, use your imagination!
Tips and tricks:
- You can make signs in the tunnels on the fences, but remember to skip one line (try it to see why)
- You CAN make 3x3xhow long do you want tunnels, but 2 high tunnels are more subway-like
- Build a kiosk in busy stations and hire pigs (if you edit your inventory)
- Create a map of your system (a tutorial will be made soon)
- Use Powered Rail every 3 blocks and then a rail, then 3 more powered rails.
- Use a livery for your train station
- Use fence gates for gates in concourses.
- Metro 1.png
A tunnel.
- Metro 2.png
The mouth of a tunnel.
- Metro 4.png
A station from outside...
- Metro 8.png
and inside (as you may see, the seed is nyan).
- Metro 3.png
A hidden station.
- Metro 6.png
A dark tunnel.
- Metro 7.png
An open-air line.
- Metro 5.png
A big station housing many lines (exactly 3).









