Railroad builder¶

Build surface and air railroads straight from where your character is standing — always-powered lines and stations — without placing a single block by hand. mc-tui reads your position and facing over RCON, compiles the track to fill/setblock commands, and streams them to the server.

Lines are authored as small YAML files, so they're portable, versionable and re-runnable. All commands are sent over RCON (no datapack or world-file access needed), which suits a remote server.

Quick start¶

mc-tui            # then choose  [rail builder]  →  build a line

Stand where the line should start, look the way it should go, and the wizard walks you through it:

1. player — whose position/facing to use
2. direction — defaults to the way you're facing (override if you like)
3. height offset — 0 = at your feet, or raise it for a sky bridge
4. width — 3 (a platform with walkable edges) or 1 (just the rail)
5. length — 16 / 32 / 64 / 128 / 256, or type any number
6. deck — the polished/brick stone palette (or type any block)
7. line color — a subway-style stripe under the rail (or none)
8. walls — none, glass, fences, brick walls…
9. lighting — lamp posts or edge lanterns (see below)

You get a preview of the commands, then run over RCON, copy them, or save as YAML to ~/.config/mc-tui/rail/.

Going up and down (ramps)¶

build a line asks flat / up / down. A ramp climbs or drops one block per step on ascending rails, with its own length presets 4 / 8 / 12 / 16 / 24 / 32 (= blocks climbed). Climbing eats a cart's speed, so ramps are powered hard: two powered rails in a row every 4 steps (every 2 on the short 4/8 ramps, which makes them fully powered) — "more energy to climb". The catch a hand-builder learns: on a slope the booster's redstone_block goes on the rail's high side (one step up-slope, at the rail's height), not directly below it — below does nothing to an ascending rail.

Chain a ramp between flat segments to climb to a new level and keep going:

segments:
  - { from: [100, 64, -30], dir: east, length: 32 }            # flat
  - { from: end, dir: east, length: 16, grade: up }            # climb 16
  - { from: end, dir: east, length: 32 }                       # flat, 16 higher

Kept at top speed¶

The track is mostly plain rail, with a booster every 8 blocks — a powered_rail sitting on its own redstone_block tucked into the deck. Each booster powers itself, and the plain rails between simply coast, so the line uses very little gold and there are never any unpowered powered-rails to brake the cart. A booster every 8 blocks keeps a minecart pinned at top speed on the flat and lines the boosters up with the even length presets (8/16/32…). Just drop a minecart on the line and ride.

Lighting¶

Any block light stops hostile mob spawns, so a lit line can't become a mob conveyor. Two styles, placed every light_spacing (default 8 — ≤ 24 keeps the whole track spawn-proof):

• poles — a lamp post just beyond the deck edge with a lantern on top
• edge — lanterns sitting on top of the deck edge
• sides of base — lanterns hanging under the deck edge (full blocks like sea lanterns sit flush on the flank)

Pick any light block (lantern, sea lantern, glowstone, end rod…) and which side(s) to light.

Long lines in chunks (the end stop)¶

Building a very long line at once means riding blind past unloaded chunks. Easier to lay it in pieces — and the end stop makes that safe. Turn it on (a buffer block, e.g. red_concrete, one block past the last rail) and a cart can't fly off the end: it stops at the buffer.

To continue, ride to the end, hop out, and build the next line from there — it starts where you're standing, so its first rail lands on the buffer and replaces it, seamlessly joining the two (a new line starts with a booster, so the whole run stays at top speed). Repeat as far as you like.

Stations¶

[rail builder] → place a station drops a stop at your position, oriented to your facing:

• halt — an open platform with a lever-controlled launcher and corner lanterns
• covered — the same, plus a roof, pillars and hanging lanterns
• terminus — a dead-end buffer for the end of a line: the rail ends at a solid 2-high wall the cart bumps and stops against

A halt/covered station's middle is a powered_rail that's unpowered by default (a brake), isolated from the line's power by short regular-rail sections — so an arriving cart stops. Flip the lever beside it to energise the launcher and the cart departs; flip it off to park.

You can also add stations to a line's YAML directly:

stations:
  - { at: start, type: covered }
  - { at: 64,    type: halt }      # at: start | end | <offset> | [x, y, z]
  - { at: end,   type: halt }

Junctions (track switches)¶

[rail builder] → place a junction drops a switch one block ahead of you, oriented to your facing:

• t — the through line stays straight; a branch peels off 90° to the left or right
• y — a two-way fork: the cart rests toward the side opposite the branch and diverts to the branch

How the switch works. A plain rail at a junction can't be flipped back and forth by a lever alone — in Minecraft, powering a rail forces it into the branch curve, but un-powering it doesn't switch it back (the rail keeps its shape). So each junction is driven by two hidden command blocks that set the rail's shape directly:

• a lever beside the junction fires the "divert" command block — flip it and the next cart takes the branch
• a detector rail just past the junction fires the "reset" command block — as the cart rides over it the switch springs back to the through line

So it's a one-shot diversion: flip the lever, send a cart down the branch, and the switch resets itself for the traffic behind it. The command blocks sit clear of the junction rail so they never power it by accident. (Command blocks must be enabled on the server — they are by default; everything is placed for you over RCON, nothing to craft.)

The branch ends in a short powered stub — continue it by building a new line from its end (place a junction leaves you a rail to extend), exactly like chaining line segments.

In YAML a junction overlays the line at any anchor:

junctions:
  - { at: 64, kind: t, branch: right }   # at: start | end | <offset> | [x,y,z]
  - { at: 96, kind: y, branch: left }

Two roles fall out of this naturally: a maintenance switch out on the line (walk up, flip the lever) and, since a junction can sit right by a stop, passenger-style picking at a station. For a station that fans out to several lines, the simplest layout is a hub — a cluster of single-exit stations you walk between to change lines — rather than one multi-exit platform.

Materials & corners¶

Corners are built by hand (place rails in an L and they auto-curve). The materials / corner kit entry — and the railroad category in the main cheatsheet — give you the rails, redstone, deck palette and carts in one place.

YAML & the CLI¶

The wizard writes a file like this (concrete coordinates, so re-running rebuilds in the same spot):

line:
  id: blue
  color: blue_concrete       # under-rail stripe
defaults:
  width: 3
  deck: polished_andesite    # prefer polished/brick variants
  walls: glass
  power_spacing: 8           # booster every N blocks (aligns with the presets)
  light: lantern             # none | lantern | sea_lantern | glowstone | …
  light_style: pole          # pole | edge
  light_spacing: 8
segments:
  - { from: [120, 64, -30], dir: east, length: 128 }
stations:
  - { at: start, type: covered }

Drive it from the shell too:

mc-tui rail validate blue-line.yml          # schema check + command count
mc-tui rail compile  blue-line.yml          # print the commands
mc-tui rail run      blue-line.yml           # compile + stream over RCON
mc-tui rail run      blue-line.yml RodrigoDKi  # resolve from:player / dir:auto live

A from: player / dir: auto line is resolved from the named player's live pose (from: player lands one block ahead of them); concrete coordinates need no player.