COMMUTERS were evacuated after fire broke out on a train on the Tyne and Wear Metro network today.
Passengers spotted the blaze beneath the rear carriage of a service on a stretch of the line between Hadrian Road and Howden stations, in North Tyneside, at about 7.30am.
They used the emergency button to alert the driver who stopped the train and asked passengers on the affected carriage, which was filling with smoke, to move further forward.
The driver then continued to Hadrian Road station, where a bus was made available to take affected passengers to their destinations, while the blaze was extinguished.
Services were initially suspended on the St James to North Shields stretch of line, but within a short time all but the section from Wallsend to North Shields was back in use.
Full service was restored by about 9.30am.
Metro engineers were carrying out checks to discover the cause of the fire.
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