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[Quarque]

What happens when the path of a minecart is blocked by a closed door, does it go through?

What if the door is forbidden? Could you use a forbidden door to close off a railway track to dwarves?

[askovdk]

No and yes (at least when I played with this about 3 years ago).

The trick I found to work well was using pressure plates to trigger the opening of the locked doors, and it worked perfectly to avoid cats and dwarfs using the tracks as a shortcut.

https://mkv25.net/dfma/poi-29600-lowerstation 

[PatrikLundell]

I can't swear on it, but I think minecart push open doors that are not locked or hooked up to mechanisms, with forbidden doors being a question mark.

When I used doors to block off tracks from pedestrians I used pressure plates connected to the doors. However, it has since been said it's a much better idea to build statues on the tracks, as those block critters but not minecarts (I haven't tried it myself, but the reporters are usually correct).

Note that traffic designations are fairly ineffective in reducing road kill, as those only affect sapient fortress inhabitants, not visitors or animals.

[Broms]

Good point on statues,I recall they block minecarts but not their contents. You can test it by having a dwarf ride a minecart into a state and they will fly through it and the minecart will blind backwards.

[Larix]

There's been a few errors in this thread. I've just re-checked for .47.02, and minecarts' behaviour hasn't changed at all:

Doors: doors block minecart movement. Żes, unlocked/unlinked doors, too. They are not pushed open. Speed doesn't matter - a cart travelling at dwarven pushing speed is blocked exactly like an impulse-ramp-driven one going at 100 000+ speed.

Statues: as Patrik Lundell mentioned, statues block walking units, but don't block minecarts at all. Notably, minecart contents get through just as well - dwarfs riding minecarts pass through statues completely unhindered. Expectedly, statues are not compatible with "guided" minecart routes - the guiding dwarf needs walkable tracked path to follow.

Broms' recollection may be related to fortifications, which indeed block movement of minecarts but allow contents to fly through as projectiles.

[Quarque]

wow, thanks! So statues are essential if you want to have an automated minecart track without killing dwarves (weird idea, I know).

[PatrikLundell]

wow, thanks! So statues are essential if you want to have an automated minecart track without killing dwarves (weird idea, I know).

Well, triggered doors work as well, but require more work to set up. On the other hand, it's an option if you find the simpler statue solution to be too weird/exploity.

[iceball3]

Now that we can manually designate statue descriptions, they seem like a pretty awesome way to have minecart-only themed "secret passages". Even if it ends up just being a themed renaming of the statue building to "no entry sign".
Building destroyers smash them down too, so they're not completely foolproof either.

[gchristopher]

Broms' recollection may be related to fortifications, which indeed block movement of minecarts but allow contents to fly through as projectiles.

(haven't tested with latest release) Minecarts that fly (from crossing a gap or being launched upwards), will also pass through fortifications, including their contents. This adds a step of needing to get the cart airborne, but permits building-destroyer-proof minecart-rider airlocks without needing an artifact statue.

[Fleeting Frames]

Artifact statues aren't building destroyer proof anyway, being that the proof relies on artifacts being immune to wear, and statues don't take any wear.

You can however archive similar effect with a raising bridge that's momentarily marked for deconstruction.

[PatrikLundell]

Artifact statues aren't building destroyer proof anyway, being that the proof relies on artifacts being immune to wear, and statues don't take any wear.

You can however archive similar effect with a raising bridge that's momentarily marked for deconstruction.

I assume you mean that since statues are immune to wear, they're toppled instead?

[Fleeting Frames]

Sentence fragment; statues don't take any wear (when building destroyers work to topple them). Artifact or not - I use bunch of regular statues as troll bait with take from links only statue stockpile next to the statue.