Vandals force train to stop before defacing carriages

Police are hunting for vandals caught on camera forcing a Melbourne train to stop before tagging it.

The packed peak hour service was forced to stop between Mordialloc and Aspendale Stations as the group defaced the train.

Frustrated passengers filmed the trespassers as they left their mark before escaping over a fence.

“If you want to be an artist, paint on a canvas,” Detective Inspector Andrew Gutske, from the Transit Safety Division, said.

“To paint on someone else's property is straight out criminal damage.”

The train had to be taken out of service for repairs and it costs $10 million a year to fix up the mess on the state’s public transport network.

“It costs millions of dollars that could be spent otherwise putting on services and making sure out public transport system is running much better than it can be,” Minister for Public transport Melissa Horne told 9News.

Each year there are around 2000 glass clean ups at bus shelters, increasing by 10 per cent each year. From November 2017 to March this year, there were more than 5000 vandalism incidents on trams.. Last year there were more than 700 criminal damage reports at train stations.

There are around 9000 cameras across the network which police use to track down offenders.

So far this year, 18 people have been arrested offences range from vandalism to trespass.