Central Railway today dispatched a special Ro-Ro service to Visakhapatnam to load up on oxygen for COVID-19 patients. The train will collect the vital gas from the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant.
It is unclear where the oxygen will be unloaded.
In order to load trucks on the flatbed wagons, Central Railway’s Mumbai Division arranged a ramp at its Kalamboli goods shed near Panvel.
The Ro-Ro service with 7 empty tankers departed from Kalamboli goods yard for Visakhapatnam steel plant siding at 8.05 pm. This train will move via Vasai Road, Jalgaon, Nagpur, Raipur Jn to Visakhapatnam steel plant siding in ECoR zone where it will be loaded with Liquid Medical Oxygen.
The train will take an unusually long route via Jalgaon-Udhna (Surat)-Jalgaon. It is likely that this route was adopted to avoid the ghat sections on Central Railway’s Mumbai-Howrah and Mumbai-Chennai routes between Kasara-Igatpuri and Karjat-Lonavala.
Railways transported essential commodities and kept the supply chain intact even during the lockdown last year and continue to serve the Nation in times of emergencies.