Midland, airport train lines reopen after intense fire in $15m maintenance vehicle

Train services on two Perth lines are back up and running following a dramatic fire onboard a maintenance vehicle on Monday afternoon.

Fire crews took about 45 minutes to bring the fire under control after being called to the emergency near Mount Lawley at about 12.30pm, on a day when the temperature in Perth soared above 37C.

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Perth train catches fire

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The fire was sparked inside a $15 million maintenance vehicle used to detect faults along the track, causing the closure of the Midland and airport lines.

The diesel-powered machine had been running diagnostic tests on the network before the incident.

Witnesses saw workers scramble from the train on Railway Pde, with flames and smoke spilling out of the roof of the carriage.

The five workers inside escaped uninjured with an alarm alerting them to the fire within the engine cavity.

The intensity of the blaze melted overhead lines.

Transperth organised replacement buses to run between Perth and Midland and Perth and Redcliffe, with the disruption spelling disaster for workers heading home.

The blaze has been blamed on a technical fault, with a full investigation to follow.

“We’ll obviously be doing a lot of research and reviewing what happened to try to figure out how it happened,” Public Transport Authority spokesman David Hynes said.

The train has been pushed off the track.