Home > Blog > 2026-06-23 — The Nether Arrives

2026-06-23 — The Nether Arrives

Latest build: v0.354.0 on GitHub · CurseForge · Modrinth

Today's update is one of the largest the train has seen. The locomotive now passes through both of Minecraft's other dimensions. The End-island crossing is joined by a full Nether passage — real terrain, real Nether rules, and real Nether music. Here is everything that shipped in the last 24 hours.

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The Nether Arrives — v0.354.0

Mountains Into the Nether

A new world-gen band sends the train climbing through towering overworld mountains before it enters the Nether. Grass, forests, flowers, and snow-capped peaks grow on the slopes. Villages and other structures appear on the hillsides. The climb passes through highland biomes — groves, meadows, snowy slopes, and jagged peaks — before the train tunnels through the peaks and descends into the netherrack core.

The mountain front no longer rises as a sharp vertical wall. It grows gradually from the surrounding landscape, and its edge weaves naturally across the terrain instead of running in a dead-straight line. Where the band meets the sea, you get a natural sand shore with soft dunes leading up into the slopes.

A Real Nether Core

The stretch of Nether the train crosses is now dressed with the game's own world-gen: fire, glowstone, lava springs, mushrooms, and mineable Nether ores (quartz, gold, and ancient debris). It carries the Nether's red fog, ambient cave sounds, and music.

The core now flows through all five Nether biomes the way the Nether itself generates them: crimson and warped forests, soul sand valleys, basalt deltas, and nether wastes. Ground, decoration, fog colour, and mobs all change with the biome you're in.

Lava Bridges on Open Pillars

The train no longer rides a solid netherrack tunnel the whole way through. It now tunnels through the netherrack masses and bridges across lava lakes on open pillars — the same way it tunnels through hills and bridges ravines in the overworld. The tunnel and train deck are kept clear of stray netherrack and stone.

Nether Rules Apply

Inside the red-fog core, Minecraft's Nether rules kick in. Water boils away on contact. Beds explode. Wet sponges dry out instantly. Rain, clouds, and lightning stop. The sky fades to the Nether biome overhead — crimson red, warped teal, soul-sand blue, basalt grey, or wastes red — and crossfades back to normal as you ride out the far side.

Vanilla Nether music rises as you enter the core and fades when you leave, mirroring the End band's soundtrack swap.

Piglins Keep Their Cool

Piglins, piglin brutes, and hoglins no longer zombify when they stand in the overworld's Nether biome. Inside the core they behave exactly as they would in the real Nether. Step back into the normal overworld and they revert.

Ghasts Fixed

Ghasts previously sometimes spawned inside terrain and died instantly. They now only appear where there is real open air for their whole 4-block-wide body, so they float free and stick around to menace the train.

Train Stays Dry

External water and lava no longer flow into or through the train. Fluid from rivers, lakes, and oceans is stopped at the carriage edge and cleared from inside the train's footprint each tick. Decks and interiors stay dry even as the train crosses water.

Clean Nether Tunnel

Basalt and other Nether decoration no longer intrude into the train tunnel. Worldgen water in the netherrack mountains is cleared. Gravel can no longer fall onto the rails in the Nether.

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End Islands — v0.351.0 and v0.352.0

The Train Carves Through End Islands

In the disintegration band — where the world dissolves into floating End islands — the train no longer skirts a cleared lane around the islands. It now bores tunnels straight through any island in its path and rides out across the gaps on pillars, the same way it tunnels through hills and bridges ravines in the overworld.

End-stone islands no longer darken at night. Their surfaces stay lit with the End's ambient glow around the clock and fade in and out smoothly as you cross each zone.

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New Advancements — v0.352.0

Eight new advancements track your journey through the void and your encounters with echoes of other players.

The void journey:

• Voided Warranty — ride far enough that the world itself disintegrates
• Tastes like Cheese? — cross the floating End islands in the disintegration band
• Re-Over-World — ride back out to normal overworld on the far side

Echoes of other players:

• Repressed Memory — shove your own echo off the train into the void
• A Stranger's Ghost — encounter a remote echo from another player's world
• Befriending the Dead — befriend a remote echo
• Not Your Ghost to Keep — kill a remote echo
• Erased — shove another player's echo into the void

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Narrative — v0.353.0

"Weakness, Then Gold"

A new seven-letter book rides the train. A zombie hunts its own cure — a Potion of Weakness from a witch, then a Golden Apple. The writing climbs from groans to human speech as the cure takes. The last letter leaves the recipe for the next lost soul who finds it.

Soren's Second Letter

Soren's second letter now opens with a burst of excitement as she realises the door is truly real.

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Bug Fixes

• Pause keeps you aboard — pausing mid-ride with Esc and then resuming no longer strands you behind with the train gone. On resume you are placed back on the train deck and it keeps rolling.
• End island chunk holes — whole chunk-shaped gaps were sometimes appearing inside End islands in the disintegration band. Islands now generate complete.
• Ghast spawning — see above.
• Nether tunnel debris — see above.

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Releases shipped today: v0.351.0 · v0.352.0 · v0.353.0 · v0.354.0