A team driven by a commitment to address emergency

Frontline rail staff take pride in running life saving Oxygen Express trains, running non-stop to meet the heavy demand in COVID second wave

Forty-eight-year-old R.N. Rao is an old railway war horse, starting as an assistant loco-pilot, becoming loco-pilot, moving onto Express Trains and now Loco-Inspector supervising operations. But, even he did not imagine marshalling trains running with empty trucks and later containers, and returning them filled with Oxygen, practically non-stop, to meet up with the heavy demand in view of the second COVID pandemic wave. “We are aware of the dire necessity of Oxygen during these tough times. With advance planning, coordinated team work with other departments like operations, signalling and others, plus monitoring at the highest levels, we are able to provide succour to the needy patients,” he says. Mr. Rao is among the hundreds of unknown railway soldiers carefully chosen by the South Central Railway (SCR) to run Oxygen Expresses sourced by the Telangana government to replenish the life giving gas in hospitals. While the first five tanker express began journey on April 28 from Secunderabad Cantonment military sliding station and returned loaded from Angul (Odisha) on May 1. So far, 15 such trains have delivered Oxygen to Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.