19 Oxygen Express trains kept on standby: Railways

MUMBAI: The Railways has kept 19 freight trains on standby at different locations for transportation of oxygen, if needed, to Maharashtra, officials said on Thursday. The trains will be used if the Maharashtra government wants to ferry liquid oxygen from any location outside the state.

Nineteen Roll-on Roll-off (RORO) freight trains with a capacity to attach 32 flat wagons, on which tankers can be loaded, are standby. Of these, two trains are at standby at Kalamboli in

Navi Mumbai, seven trains at Nagpur railway station and 10 at Pune railway station.

Railways are operating oxygen express as per the demand from the state government. Both the Central and Western Railway have operated one Oxygen Express each carrying nearly 149 tonnes of medical oxygen to Maharashtra.

“We have kept RORO on standby and will be operating it as the state government demands for it. We have not yet received requirements for operation of another Oxygen Express yet. The flat wagons will be deployed as we get demand from the state government,” said a senior railway official.

Ten tankers carrying oxygen were sent to Maharashtra from Gujarat and Visakhapatnam. RORO service movement on Central Railway is challenging due to the ghat section and takes time as trains with the oxygen tankers cannot be transported from the ghat section. The route of the train is decided after evaluating the ghat areas, road overbridges (ROB), tunnels, curves, platform canopies and overhead equipment (OHE).

The first Oxygen Express departed from Kalamboli railway yard to a steel plant in Visakhapatnam on April 19 and returned on April 24.