What a welcome. South Central trains is investing millions of pounds in new trains and just days after the first carriages roll into Brighton they are vandalised.

Mindless graffiti scrawlers daubed their garish messages all over the plush new units being kept in sidings near the station.

Now South Central will have to spend hundreds of pounds cleaning up the mess to restore their sparkling new livery.

Thousands of commuters in the city have been waiting almost 40 years for trains which are fit to cope with their early morning and late-night journeys into work.

It's hard to think what possible pleasure these yobs could have gained by trying to ruin them.

At least the damage was not great enough for there to be delays in bringing the rolling stock into service.

But the vandals were also foolhardy because they risked their lives to carry out the pointless attacks.

To reach the trains, they had to walk across high voltage electric railways and go across track used by many trains.

Security has already been tightened up in the depot and sidings area opposite Preston Park but it's hard to protect such a large area completely.

Next time vandals have a go at trains in this area, they might not get away with it so lightly.