Indian Railways has run 858 Special freight trains through green corridors to supply over 14,403 tons of Oxygen in cryogenic tanks and roll-on-roll-off road tankers for supply to the Hospitals and Covid care centers in the states of Punjab, Haryana, UP, Uttrakhand and Delhi.

This is about 50 per cent of the total LMO movement by Indian Railways, said a senior officer of the Railway Ministry here on Saturday. He said in addition to this, Multi-disciplinary Freight Business Development Units (BDU) have also been set up at zonal and divisional levels.

The Indian Railways are also revamping 44 Goods Sheds over Northern Railway and transported a record 26 million ton of food-grain between April and December 2021 to different states to support the largest food security programme in the world. The Northern Railway has also achieved the highest ever originating revenue loading earnings of 7,064 crore from April-Dec’ 2021. It has also maintained its punctuality performance of passenger trains running at above 92 per cent, the Ministry claimed.

On Safety front as well, the Northern Railways has performed well. “There has been no accident on account of collision and there is 44% reduction in derailments as compared to last year over the zone,” the Ministry claimed.

All unmanned level crossings have been eliminated over Northern Railway in the year 2018-19. Now Manned Level Crossing gates are being converted to either ROB or RUB. Some LCs are provided with Electric lifting barriers for enhanced road safety.

For safe operations of trains, signaling systems have been modernized. Fog safety devices have been provided to Loco pilots on all trains. Intensive night patrolling of tracks is done for timely detection of rail fractures and displacement both in peak winters and summer season. GPS based hand held trackers have been given to the patrolling staff for timely reporting of faults, the Ministry said.

The Ministry said the Railway is working towards Mission 100 per cent electrification and has already electrified more than 70 per cent Route Km over Northern Railway. Northern Railway has been procuring cheaper power through open access in Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and UP, and consequently saved Rs 300 crore as traction energy bill.

The Eco-friendly Head on Generation scheme has also been applied on all 90 LHB primary EOG trains, saving High-Speed Diesel worth Rs 33 crore in 4 months, earning 12 thousand ton carbon credits for Railways, the Ministry stated.

For utilization of Solar energy, grid connected metered solar power plants have been set up all over the zone. 40 Lakh unit electricity is being generated from them, with a reduction of 3251 ton CO2 emission, it added.