For the February Minecraft session I decided to build the train tracks from the station I’d completed in January. There were actually three tracks coming out of the station, which raised the possibility of having multiple tracks going from the station to the city, but I decided to just build one. Which sounds simple enough, I just had to figure out the exact path.

A random pretty picture I took while flying back to the station.

A nighttime view of the back entrance to the guardhouse on top of the mountain.

Where exactly should the track go here?

That last picture raised the first real question about the track. The desert isn’t very high quality terrain, so I’d been thinking I’d run the track through that. But the track would naturally enter on the bottom right, and there’s water there with a tree nearby, making a rather nice oasis. So, after thinking about it more, I decided that I didn’t want to run it through the desert, and I also didn’t want to run it between the trees and the desert: I instead took inspiration from the terraces on the right and put the track on one of them.

The track winding around to the right of the desert.

A closer view of the terrace.

After that, I followed that level of the terrace for a while; not too long later, it opened up into a wider grass area, near Roger’s unfinished cathedral. And I decided to scout ahead a bit; after that grass area, there’s a water / shore section, with a big tower that Pat built as the major landmark.

Near the unfinished cathedral.

A view of the city across the water.

A closer view of the base of the tower.

I’d been thinking I’d run the tracks along the shore, but the woods there are really thick, I’d have to cut trees down. And, if you look at that first water picture, there’s a nice gap in the trees on the land between the two water sections; if I run the track through there, then I can skirt the water on the left shore in the first section, and cut across the ice to the left of the tower in the second section.

That seemed straightforward enough; back to track laying.

Some interesting caves I noticed when passing by them; I can imagine eventually building stuff around there…

The windy parts of the track, near the station.

It got a lot more boring once I moved away from the mountain.

Approaching the water.

My first track over water; turns out I can’t build track straight on ice, I have to replace the ice with something else.

That’s what I was working on; yes, I spent more than an hour mostly thinking about where to put a bit of rail, and didn’t even reach the city. Dan was the other person building stuff; he built a tower near the art installations he’d been working on earlier, nicely placed to link his recent buildings with buildings extending out from the city.

A glowing tower.

A view from farther back: you can see how it’s near one of Pat’s towers (not the same one earlier in the post!), and you can also see one of the existing train loops attached to the city (the one that goes through the underwater tunnel).

Just the tower and the rain.

Two towers and the city.

The view from the tower to the art gallery.

A view down from high up.

This tower is quite tall; and, in keeping with Dan’s recent aesthetic, there’s a deep hole at its base (though I don’t think he went down to bedrock this time).

Looking down the middle of the tower.

Where the tower enters the water.

The bottom of the pit.

Looking up from the bottom.

The view from the art gallery area.