Supervision of Oxygen Express at a high level
Mumbai: Railways accepted the Oxygen Express as a challenge and successfully operated the first Oxygen Express from Kalamboli to Vizag and Vizag to Nashik. Immediate ramps were constructed by the Railways at various places as soon as the Railways requested for the transport of liquid medical oxygen tankers. The Mumbai Division team has done an admirable job of constructing a ramp at Kalamboli in just 24 hours.
For the transport of Ro-Ro service, the railways had to map the entire route taking into account the constraints of ghat sections, road over bridges, tunnels, curved routes, platform canopies, overhead equipment etc. Because altitude is an important factor in this, the Railways prepared a traffic map for Vasai. It was found that the model of road tanker T1618 with a height of 3320 mm could be placed on flat wagons. The long-distance route via Vasai was chosen as over-dimensional cargo (ODC) was not allowed in the Ghats section of Mumbai.
Since oxygen is a cryogenic and hazardous chemical, it is necessary to check the pressure in between, especially when it is in the loading state, with the need to prevent the train from accelerating or slowing down suddenly. However, the railways accepted the challenge, prepared route maps, trained people and were able to take tankers of certain sizes to Vizag via Vasai, Surat, Bhusawal, Nagpur.
The distance from Kalamboli to Vizag is more than 1850 kms which this train completed in about 50 hours. Seven tankers with more than 100 tons of LMO (Liquid Medical Oxygen) were loaded in 10 hours and brought back to Nagpur in just 21 hours. Railways unloaded 3 tankers in Nagpur yesterday and the remaining 4 tankers reached Nashik from Nagpur in just 12 hours at 10.25 am today.
Oxygen transport for long distances is faster than road transport by rail. It takes 2 days by rail and 3 days by road. Trains can run 24 hours but truck drivers have to wait. Need to take. Green corridors were created for the fast transportation of these tankers and the movements were monitored at the highest level because we know that this is a difficult time for our nation and the nation is paramount for us.
Even last year, in the lockdown, the railways transported essential goods and maintained a supply chain and continued to serve the nation in emergencies.
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