AN ARDROSSAN youngster is in the running for her festive drawing to be featured on trains across the month of December.

Eva McClure, who is just eight-years-old, could see her festive drawing transform a Virgin Train this December after entering the train operator’s nationwide search for a Christmas Train design.

The competition launched in September in partnership with the Book Trust, and invited primary school children to send in their ideas for a Christmas Train makeover. Now Eva is up against nine other shortlisted designs and is in with a great chance of winning.

Eva’s entry, which was inspired by the popular Christmas carol, ‘12 Days of Christmas’, is amongst those which impressed Jill Murphy, the judging panel chair. Jill said: “I was delighted with the number of entries received and we carefully pored over each one. Choosing a shortlist wasn’t easy, but in the end we all agreed that these designs showed great flair and really captured the spirit of Christmas."

Eva said: “I love art and I’m always drawing, so I when I saw the competition I thought it would be loads of fun to enter. I love trains as both my Papa and my aunt work on them. I’m really excited I’ve been shortlisted. I can’t wait to find out if I’ve won. It’d make me so happy!” Should Eva win, her design will be unveiled on Virgin Trains on December 1 and seen across the network throughout that month.

Patrick McCall, Chairman of Virgin Trains, said: “We’ve been thrilled to see the number of creative entries flooding in and we’ll have a tough time narrowing it down to just one winner.”

Diana Gerald, Book Trust chief executive, said: “It was fantastic to see so many of the entries inspired by classic Christmas stories, as quite often in children’s books it’s the illustrations that imprint in our memories.”