The second 'Oxygen Express' carrying about 50 tonnes of medical oxygen from Bokaro Steel Plant departed for Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh on Friday.

The Ro-Ro (roll-on-roll-off) train with three tankers left from Bokaro at about 1 pm, and will reach Lucknow on Saturday morning.

The first Oxygen Express train had left for Maharashtra from Visakhapatnam on Thursday.

The transportation of liquid medical oxygen is being done with road tankers placed on flat railway wagons.

An initiative by the Railways, Oxygen Express will transport oxygen across the country over the next few days. Empty tankers will be loaded with liquid medical oxygen from Bokaro and Jamshedpur in Jharkhand.

“SAIL and Rail once again continue to serve the nation in difficult times by making life-saving fluid reach the state battling a crisis of medical oxygen amid Covid-19 surge,” said Amarendu Prakash, director in-charge of BSL, who was present at the spot.

An Oxygen Express train with three empty oxygen tankers came from Lucknow and arrived at Bokaro Steel City railway station early on Friday morning.

The Oxygen Express at the Diesel Shed of the Bokaro Railway The Telegraph picture

The train was then moved to Diesel Loco Shed, Bokaro where the empty road tankers were unloaded and taken to Bokaro Steel Plant for filling up of liquid medical oxygen.

After loading of a total of 46.34 tonnes of liquid medical oxygen at Bokaro Steel Plant, the three tankers were re-loaded in wagons of Oxygen Express train which later left Bokaro railway station in the afternoon on its way to Lucknow.

Area Railway Manager, Bokaro Railway, Prabhat Prasad said that the wagons after being reloaded with oxygen filled tankers departed at about 12.45 pm. Railway Minister, Piyush Goyal, railway board, South Eastern Railway and Adra Railway Division are monitoring the activities.

BSL curtailed the use of liquid oxygen in their steel plants to divert the supply to hospitals in Jharkhand and other states in this Covid crisis, said Prakash.

In this month of April, BSL alone supplied 764 tonnes of liquid oxygen to Ranchi, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Maharastra and Madaya Pradesh by road transport.

In the last 24 days, 230 tonnes of liquid oxygen was sent to Uttar Pradesh through the road route.