Percy had thought he'd seen everything he would; in his 117 years of living, he's been involved in so many accidents he'd joked with the Fat Controller that they should make the timetable include derailing at Brendam docks. He knew it wouldn't happen, but a little voice inside of him wanted it to.

But that wouldn't matter now; he woke up in a scrapyard.

How he ended up in a scrapyard he didn't know.

The engines were big.

The engines were very big.

Not just "Gordon" big, not even "Murdoch" big, but "I'm scared for my life" big. One of them had twelve driving wheels! And their couplers were ones that he only saw on engines brought over during the War from America.

He hoped he wasn't in America. Although, that would mean that the Fat Controller didn't scrap him, since Lord knows he'd never spend that much money. A dog came—Percy liked dogs, and knew this one fairly quickly as a bull terrier—and saw the new arrival. He barked loudly, alerting the scrapyard foreman to something. Something named Percy.

He just stared at Percy, incredulously. He wasn't very scared, just confused. Then Percy spoke and he nearly fainted and died.

"Uh, sir, are you okay?" he asked.

The foreman nodded and started the stream of questions, starting, predictably, with "how did you get in here?" Sure enough, he was an American man.

"I don't know."

"Do you know where you are?"

"No, but you sound American, so America?"

"Yes. You look old, when were you built?"

"1900 in, uh, Bristol I think."

And the questions went on. The foreman learned interesting things about Britain and Percy learned where he was.

He was right. He was in America.

The foreman held up a mirror to the little green engine. Well, "green" in some spots anyway. He seemed as rusted and worn as any of the engines here, even his face looked worn and sooty. However, he didn't have any permanent damage, and the foreman wasn't going to scrap him right then and there, so he was good. "Uh, so, you're not going to scrap me, are you?"

The foreman laughed, "No, I'm not. You're a living thing after all." Percy wondered what he meant by that, but had a feeling it involved the foreman's surprise from earlier. And trains.

And so he waited. And waited, and waited, and waited. The dog showed up to keep him company, but he didn't hear from the foreman again.

Until one day…