First Oxygen Express to Karnataka chugs into Bengaluru

Bengaluru, May 11 : The first Oxygen Express to Karnataka with six cryogenic containers chugged into the citys Whitefield railway station, an official said on Tuesday.

"The Oxygen Express came from Tatanagar in Jharkhands Jamshedpur," a Western Railway Zone official said.

The railways created a signal-free green corridor for a non-stop run of the 1,833 km route from Tatanagar to Bengaluru, which was covered in nearly 30 hours."With 20 MT of liquid medical oxygen in each container, 120 MT of the gas were transported from Jharkhand to Karnataka," said the official.

The state government sought the railways help in ferrying the liquid medical oxygen from Tatanagar for supplying hospitals across the state."A ramp was built at the satellite goods terminal for unloading the oxygen containers safely," said the official.

The Indian Railways have been operating Oxygen Express trains across the country over the last three weeks to speedily deliver the gas in various states for meeting the growing demand to treat Covid patients amid the pandemics second wave."Till date, the railways ran 75 Oxygen Express trains to deliver 4,700 MT to Delhi, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh," added the official.