BetterRails

Better Rails is a Forge 1.20.1 mod designed to make Minecraft railways faster, cheaper, easier to build, and much more practical for long-distance transport.

Instead of manually placing hundreds of rails block-by-block, Better Rails adds railway construction tools that can automatically connect two points, cut through terrain, build support underneath the track, generate tunnels, and create smooth slopes and turns while still using Minecraft-style rail geometry.

The mod also significantly improves minecart travel with faster straight-line speeds, safer corners, derail protection, train coupling, and multiplayer-friendly train controls.

Railway Auto Builder

Place a rail at your starting point, hold a normal rail, then Shift + Right Click it to enter Better Rails Build Mode.

Place another rail where you want the railway to finish, then:

Shift + Right Click the destination rail to automatically construct a supported railway between the two points.

Better Rails will attempt to create a sensible, efficient route and heavily favours long straight sections with minimal corners, allowing minecarts to maintain higher speeds for longer.

The builder can automatically:

• Excavate blocks that obstruct the railway.
• Create slopes between different elevations.
• Build through hills and terrain.
• Place a supporting block directly underneath unsupported track.
• Cross gaps, water and uneven terrain.
• Generate corners where required.
• Prefer straight, low-turn routes whenever possible.
• Connect rails even when the surrounding terrain would normally make construction difficult.

The routing system treats the environment as something it can engineer around rather than something that simply makes the route impossible.

Automatic Tunnel Construction

While Build Mode is active, Shift + Left Click the destination rail to open the Better Rails construction menu.

Tunnel generation can automatically excavate and construct a complete tunnel around the railway.

Available tunnel sizes include:

• 3×3
• 4×4
• 5×5

These measurements refer to the internal clear space of the tunnel.

Tunnels automatically follow:

• Straight track
• Corners
• Ascending track
• Descending track
• Elevation changes

The tunnel builder creates its own floor beneath the railway, so tunnel routes do not require additional cobblestone support blocks.

Custom Tunnel Materials

Tunnel walls, floors and ceilings can be generated from a selection of materials, including:

• Cobblestone
• Glass
• Bricks
• Stone Bricks
• Deepslate
• Deepslate Bricks
• Polished Deepslate
• Dirt
• Stone
• Smooth Stone
• Polished Andesite
• Blackstone
• Polished Blackstone Bricks
• Sandstone
• Red Sandstone
• Nether Bricks
• Quartz

Glass tunnels receive special handling so railway tracks and generated lighting can still function correctly despite vanilla support restrictions.

Automatic Tunnel Lighting

Tunnel construction can optionally enable Auto Lighting.

When enabled, Better Rails places wall-mounted torches throughout the tunnel at sensible intervals, providing enough lighting for practical railway use without covering every block in torches.

Lighting automatically follows:

• Straight sections
• Slopes
• Elevation changes
• Tunnel direction

Torches are mounted to the actual tunnel walls rather than placed on the floor.

Glass tunnels use a special Better Rails wall torch that visually behaves like a normal Minecraft torch while remaining compatible with Glass.

Faster Minecarts

Better Rails significantly increases minecart performance.

Minecarts accelerate much faster on straight railway and can reach substantially higher speeds than vanilla carts.

The speed system is designed around three principles:

Fast on straights.
Minecarts accelerate hard on uninterrupted railway.

Slow for corners.
Minecarts automatically reduce speed when approaching bends.

Accelerate again afterwards.
Once the cart returns to straight track, it quickly accelerates back toward its maximum speed.

The underlying vanilla rail speed restrictions are also increased so Better Rails can actually make use of these higher speeds.

Derail Protection

Normal railway is protected by Better Rails' minecart safety system.

If a cart begins leaving the track unexpectedly, the mod attempts to recover it back onto the railway.

Powered rails are treated differently and can intentionally allow a minecart to leave the track, making launcher-style railway sections possible.

Minecart Coupling

Better Rails can link minecarts together to create simple trains.

Place between two and five minecarts near one another on the railway, then:

Shift + Right Click a nearby rail with an empty hand.

Up to 5 minecarts can be connected into one train.

Coupled carts:

• Travel together.
• Maintain separation between one another.
• Follow corners and slopes independently.
• Share train movement.
• Break together if one cart is destroyed.
• Display a visual metal-chain style connection between carts.

Train Controller

Every coupled train has exactly one controller cart.

The controller is always one of the two end carts.

When coupling a train:

• If the player creating the train is already sitting in an end cart, that cart becomes the controller.
• Otherwise, the end cart closest to the rail used to create the coupling becomes the controller.

Only the controller's movement is allowed to control the train.

Passengers sitting in the other carts cannot independently accelerate the train by pressing movement controls.

Control can also be transferred to the opposite end of the train by sitting in that end cart and using the coupling interaction again.

This makes coupled minecarts suitable for multiplayer use, where several players can ride the same train without fighting over its movement.

Railway Undo

Made a railway you don't like?

Use:

/railundo

Better Rails stores recent railway construction operations and can restore the world to its previous state.

Undo restores:

• Generated rails
• Removed terrain
• Tunnel walls
• Tunnel floors and ceilings
• Tunnel lighting
• Railway supports
• Previous block states
• Supported block-entity data

In Survival Mode, materials consumed by the build are also refunded where applicable.

Multiple recent builds can be undone.

Cheaper Rail Crafting

Better Rails also makes building large railway networks considerably less expensive.

Vanilla railway recipes have been adjusted so they produce substantially more track per craft.

Current recipes produce 32 rails from their normal ingredients, including:

• Rail
• Powered Rail
• Detector Rail
• Activator Rail

This allows railway construction to remain practical even when using the automatic builder over long distances.

Controls