50 COVID-19 isolation coaches with 800 beds ready at Shakur Basti Station in Delhi

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New Delhi: 50 COVID-19 isolation coaches with 800 beds ready at Shakur Basti Station & 25 coaches will be available at Anand Vihar Station in Delhi.

This was announced on Sunday 18 April by Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of Railways. He also underscored Railways can setup more than 3 lakh isolation beds across the country on States’ demand.

Stating that Railways is leaving no stone unturned in the battle against COVID-19, the Railways Minister has announced that Oxygen express trains will be run using green corridors to get Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) and Oxygen Cylinders across the key Corridors in bulk and rapidly to patients.

Isolation coaches has started functioning at Nandurbar, Maharashtra with COVID-19 patients being admitted.

Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra state governments had approached Ministry of Railways to explore whether Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) tankers could be moved by Railways.

LMO has to be transported through Roll On Roll Off (RO RO) service with road tankers placed on flat wagons.

Due to restrictions of height of Road Over Bridges (ROBs) and Over Head Equipment (OHE) at certain locations, out of the various specifications of road tankers, the model of road tanker T 1618 with height of 3320 mm was found feasible to be placed on flat wagons (DBKM) with height of 1290 mm.

On 17 April, a meeting was held between Railway Board officials and with State Transport Commissioners and representatives of industry on “Issues related to transportation of Liquid Medical Oxygen.

It was decided that the tankers would be organized by Transport Commissioner, Maharashtra. These empty tankers would be moved from Kalamboli/Boisar, Railway stations in and near Mumbai, and sent to Vizag and Jamshedpur/Rourkela/Bokaro, for loading of liquid medical oxygen tankers from there.

instructions have been issued to Zonal Railways to ensure readiness to receive the trailers and load them back. Ramps have to be built at Vizag, Angul and Bhilai and the existing ramp at Kalamboli is to be strengthened. The Kalamboli ramp would be made ready by Monday 19 April. Ramps at other locations would also be ready in a couple of days by the time the tankers reach those locations.