Transportation Of Liquid Medical Oxygen Will Reach 640 MT In The Next 24 Hours

Oxygen express continued to bring relief to many states as its operations expanded to Haryana and Telangana after Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi.

Continuing the momentum, there are three more trains either transporting liquid oxygen or on the way to the loading plants. It is expected that cumulative liquid medical oxygen (LMO) carried by Indian Railways will reach almost 640 MT in next 24 hours.

Uttar Pradesh received its oxygen express carrying 76.29 MT of LMO on Thursday in five tankers. One tanker was offloaded in Varanasi while remaining four tankers in Lucknow.

Another train is already on its way to Lucknow and is expected to arrive today (Friday) carrying 33.18 MT LMO in four tankers. Another empty rake was expected to leave Lucknow on Thursday for bringing the next set of oxygen tankers.

Haryana will receive its first oxygen express as a train with two tankers was expected to leave Angul in Odisha on Thursday. Empty rake from Faridabad to Rourkela was also on its way and was expected to reach on Thursday night. Continuous stream of oxygen trains to Haryana will ensure oxygen replenishment to the Covid-19 patients in the state.

Telangana government has also requested Indian Railways for oxygen express. An empty rake is on its way from Secunderabad to Angul with five empty tankers and is expected to reach Angul today (Friday).

The railways is in full preparedness for providing oxygen transportation services to all the states in need. In the ongoing operation, states provide tankers to the railways. The railways then moves in the fastest feasible mode to bring the oxygen supplies from the locations and delivers it to the requisitioning state.

The deployment and use of this oxygen is done by the state government.

Liquid oxygen being a cryogenic cargo has many limitations like maximum speed at which it can be carried, maximum acceleration and deceleration and loading restrictions like availability of liquid oxygen tankers and loading ramps etc. Route mapping also takes care of the maximum clearances available along the route because of various RUBs and FOBs.