Passengers have been taken off two Melbourne trains after electrical sparks were seen shooting from the roof of a carriage on the suburban network in the inner city.

Metro Trains said a problem with wires caused sparking above a train heading out of the city about 7:25am, and about 30 passengers were escorted off the train just after 8:00am.

Metro spokeswoman Sammy Black said the train was about 600 metres from Flinders Street Station when the incident happened.

“We did call the fire brigade to attend just as a safety precaution, but they left pretty soon after that knowing it was just an overhead wire issue,” she told ABC Radio Melbourne.

“We can understand from seeing that footage it does look quite confronting but there was absolutely no risk at all to our passengers.”

Ms Black said an investigation was underway.

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The video was taken by Ben Yeo, who saw the sparks as he pulled into the carpark at Federation Square.

“When I was getting the ticket out of the machine I heard this massive spark and crack and saw some smoke coming up,” he told ABC Radio Melbourne.

“It happened again, so I thought I’d pull out my phone and see what was going on and took a quick video.

“It happened a third time but I had to rush off to work.

“The transformer of the train had a little fire coming off it. I figured that’s what was causing the delays on the Sandringham lines.”

A second train heading towards the city then lost power between the two stations.

A Metro spokeswoman said at no time were passengers at risk and the train did not catch fire.

About 300 passengers were escorted off the second train in between the stations, Metro said.

The incident was causing delays of about 30 minutes.