A young art student is devastated after losing a year’s worth of college work on an Ayr to Glasgow train.

Samuel Watson had been travelling home to Dreghorn from Ayrshire College’s Ayr Campus at around 4.30pm last Wednesday (January 30) when he accidentally left his portfolio behind. But despite frantic efforts by Samuel and ScotRail to find the missing work, the 18-year-old’s folder has not been located.

Samuel’s mum, Allison Keenan, told the Times: “He got off at Irvine and realised he had left it. He usually puts it on the seat beside him, but the train was busy, so he had sat it on the floor.

“When he came in on Wednesday after leaving it he was devastated. He went straight to his room and shut the door. I’m devastated for him.

“It’s a full year’s work; he’s so stressed about it. I’m gutted for him.

“It’s absolutely useless to anyone else, it only means something to Samuel. We just hope it’s not been someone who’s taken it and flung it somewhere out of badness.

“Samuel’s went through a difficult time trying to meet deadlines and now he’s caught up and he’s lost it all. We don’t really know how the college will be with it, we’ll have to wait and see.

“We’ve phoned Glasgow [Central Station], we’ve contacted the lost property, we’ve put a post on Facebook and Twitter.

“It’s hard. We’re trying to be positive for him. We’re just hoping that someone might have seen something or remember something.”

After Samuel lost his work, the mum of one of his classmates sent the Times a picture of her son’s folder to show readers what Samuel’s portfolio looks like.

A ScotRail spokesperson said: “Every effort has been made to track down Samuel’s art work, but unfortunately with no success.

“We’d encourage any customer who may have picked it up to hand it to a member of the ScotRail team, so we can reunite it with its owner.”