Taggers with black masks, some wearing GoPro cameras, attacked a train in Auckland today, delaying it for about 15 minutes at a station while they applied paint.
The doors remained open throughout the attack at the Puhinui Station, leading to a strong smell of fumes from the taggers' cans of spraypaint.
Passenger Jacob McConachie-Grant said at least five young men were involved in the incident.
They entered the area of the train tracks through a hole in a wire fence and got to work on that side of the train, painting, McConachie-Grant believed, most of the carriages.
He said some were wearing hoodies and had the hoods up around their heads, while others obscured their faces with bandannas. Some had GoPro-type cameras on their heads and one camera was set up on a tripod apparently to film the tagging.
Some passengers, annoyed at the delay, temporarily left the train intending to confront the taggers, but were prevented by security officers from doing so.
An Auckland Transport spokesman said two of the three carriages in the train, which was on its way to Britomart, had been tagged. The train had since gone to the Wiri train depot to be washed.
"It appears the offenders cut the fence opposite the train platform.