Overcoming all hurdles and finding new solutions, Indian Railways is continuing its journey of bringing relief by delivering Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) to various states across the country. So far, Indian Railways has delivered nearly 7900 MT of LMO in nearly 500 tankers to various states across the country.
Oxygen Expresses have been delivering nearly 800 MT of LMO to the Nation each day for the last few days.
It may be noted that Oxygen Expresses started their deliveries 20 days back on 24th April 2021 in Maharashtra with a load of 126 MT of LMO.
In just 20 days time, Railways has upscaled its Oxygen Express operations to deliver nearly 7900 MT of Medical Oxygen to 12 States.
Crisscrossing the country, Indian Railways is picking up Oxygen from places like Hapa & Mundra in the West and Rourkela, Durgapur, Tatanagar, Angul in the East and then delivering it to States of Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, MP, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Telangana, Punjab, Kerala, Delhi & UP in complex operational route planning scenarios.
In order to ensure that Oxygen relief reaches in the fastest time possible, Railways is creating new standards and unprecedented benchmarks in running of Oxygen Express Freight Trains. The average speed of these critical Freight trains is way above 55 in most cases over long distances.
Running on high priority Green Corridor, with the highest sense of urgency, operational teams of various Zones are working round the clock in the most challenging circumstances to ensure that Oxygen reaches in the fastest possible time frame. Technical stoppages have been reduced to 1 minute for crew changes over different sections.
Tracks are kept open and high alertness is maintained to ensure that Oxygen Express keeps zipping through.
All this is done in a manner that the speed of other Freight Operation doesn’t get reduced as well.
As the release is getting ready, First Oxygen Expresses for Andhra Pradesh and Kerala are on their way with 40 MT and 118 MT of Oxygen relief respectively.
First Oxygen Express to Tamil Nadu delivered 80 MT this morning and the second Oxygen Express is on the way as well.
It may be noted that 130 Oxygen Expresses have completed their journey so far and brought relief to various States.
It is Indian Railways endeavour to deliver as much LMO as possible in the shortest time possible to the requesting states.
Till the time of this release, 462 MT of Oxygen has been offloaded in Maharashtra, nearly 2210 MT in UP, 408 MT in MP, 1228 MT in Haryana, 308 MT in Telangana, 72 MT in Rajasthan, 120 MT in Karnataka, 80 MT in Uttarakhand, 80 MT in Tamil Nadu and more than 2934 MT in Delhi.
Running of new Oxygen is a very dynamic exercise and figures keep getting updated all the time. More loaded Oxygen Expresses are expected to start their journeys later in the night.
Railways has mapped different routes with Oxygen supply locations and keep itself ready with any emerging need of the States. States provide tankers to the Indian Railways for bringing LMO.