Commissioner of Railway Safety (Central Circle), Sharad Chandra Gupta expected a rush of passengers and local residents volunteering information on the crash when he arrived at Jalgaon station for the enquiry on Friday morning.

``However, not one person came forward,'' says an exasperated Gupta about his day-long wait, less than 24 hours after the accident. And when the people didn't turn up, he interviewed the 35 railway personnel present at the spot for their version of the accident, all alongkeeping his eyes peeled for an elusive public.

Gupta has told the railways to issue fresh notifications for another public hearing of the accident, where 11 coaches of the Kurla-Howrah Express derailed between Mhasawad and Shirsoli stations of Bhusaval division on Thursday. ``Testimonies from the public enforce the independence of our enquiry, since they are unbiased and usually give an accurate description of the accident,'' Gupta explains.

For impartiality in the probe, the CRS is attached to the Ministry of Civil Aviation. A report is prepared by the CRS in two months and given to the railway ministry.

Gupta had a similar experience last month when the public failed to turn up for the enquiry into the Mumbai-Nagpur Vidarbha Express accident in Wardha. A major catastrophe was avoided when the train skidded off the tracks and rested on a slope.

The CRS called for an enquiry on November 19 an sent a summons to the Superintendent of Police of Wardha who was amongst the train passengers. ``I wanted toknow what rescue operations he had supervised being a responsible police officer.'' Gupta, however, discovered that the SP had hopped onto a police car and moved out of the disaster area alongwith an MLA. When asked to come for the hearing, the SP said he was very busy and asked the CRS to come to his office instead.

Gupta, who was CRS of the Southern Railways until two months ago recalls the tremendous enthusiasm with which people attended enquiries there.

``I was practically mobbed by witnesses during the statutory enquiries in the south,'' Gupta said. The first case in August a bus was hit by a train in Karur, Tamil Nadu killing 80 persons. In the second instance, an autorickshaw was run over by a train in Bangalore in July.