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The minecart update has shown how much potential minecarts have in store, bringing in many new players to try out rails who never did before. So, today, we explore the most important rail of them all in our detector rail Minecraft 1.21.2 guide.

Crafting Detector Rails in Minecraft 1.21.2

Crafting a detector rail in Minecraft is as simple as can be, and below, we have listed every item a player will need:

• Iron Ingots x6
• Stone Pressure Plate x1
• Redstone Dust x1

Once acquired, open a crafting table and place an iron ingot on the left and rightmost sides of the top row, middle row, and bottom row. This should result in two vertical lines of iron ingots on either side of the crafting table. Next, place the stone pressure plate right in the middle. And finally, place the redstone dust in the middle slot of the bottom-most row. Your detector rail is now complete and should yield six detector rails in total.

What Do They Do?

Detector rails are a special type of rail that detects minecarts that pass over them and send out a redstone signal. While they may seem a little complicated, it is essentially no different from stepping on a pressure plate, but in this case, it is the minecraft doing the stepping. Once this occurs, the redstone signal can be used to activate other redstone components, such as doors, lights, dispensers, or even traps. However, the most popular use in Minecraft 1.21.2 is to activate powered rails, which increase the minecart’s speed along the tracks. Combined with the newly added gamerule to increase the speed cap, things can get quite fast.

How to Use Detector Rails

Depending on the goal, using detector rails requires varying levels of understanding in redstone mechanics. The basics of their use come down to placing them along a minecart track. Then, when a minecart passes over the rail, it will automatically trigger a redstone signal as previously described. This, in turn, activates whatever redstone devices are connected nearby. A few compatible examples include:

• Redstone Wiring
• Redstone Lamps
• Dispensers or Droppers
• Powered Rails

From there, detector rails can be used in contraptions of all kinds, including automatic mining systems, transportation networks, and even adventure maps to trigger specific events or actions. But, for those who simply want to go fast, place a powered rail directly after the detector rail and use the command “/gamerule minecartMaxSpeed 1000” to set the potential speed to max.