Train Kills ‘Tagger’ Taking Photos of Graffiti : Vandalism: Man was with group that had just painted railroad boxcar. Four others escape injury.

An apparent “tagger” who stopped to take photos of freshly painted graffiti on a railroad boxcar was struck and killed by a train in Panorama City, Los Angeles police said Thursday.

The dead man or his friends had just covered the railroad car’s side with his tag: KRASH.

The Coast Starlight Amtrak train carrying 300 passengers hit Aaron Seth Anderson, 23, shortly after 10:30 p.m. on the Southern Pacific railroad tracks in the 7600 block of Woodman Avenue near Saticoy Street, police said. Four youths escaped the oncoming train.

“They were spray-painting and stopped to look at their art and then they heard a train coming,” Sgt. James Bower said. “Everybody ran in one direction, but he went the opposite direction and wound up getting hit.”

“He was taking photographs of the art he had completed,” Detective Phil Morritt said.

Amtrak spokeswoman Megan Pincus said the word KRASH had been painted on a Southern Pacific boxcar near the scene.

None of the crew or passengers aboard the train, which was en route to Los Angeles from Seattle, were injured.

“Accidents like this are so tragic, because they are avoidable,” Pincus said. “People should stay away from the tracks because they’re just like a highway, except instead of cars there are trains.”