Duncan sat nervously at the docks, the sound of workmen shouting orders and bustling about filling the air along with the screech of seagulls. He remembered the banner fluttering above the main doors to the factory he'd worked at for all these years. The banner reading that it had gone out of business and would be selling its location to a new buyer. It had seemed so…so strange to him. On the one hand, it had been such a relief to see that banner. The years of shouting, and lectures, and scratches was finally over. Just like that. No complicated escape or valiant rescue, just a simple banner freeing him after years and years of torment. But that banner had brought so much dread with it as well. The factory going out of business meant that he and all the other engines who'd worked there were to be sold off to new railways with new jobs open for them, and Duncan had never been one to handle change well in the slightest.
What was even more frightening for Duncan was just how new this new railway would be for him. Not only was this railway going to be full of engines he'd never met before, but the railway wasn't in Scotland as he'd expected it to be. The railway was instead on Sodor, a small island off the coast of England. Duncan had scarcely even heard of the island before, nor was he ready to drop everything and start working there. Before he could protest though, his ship had arrived and he was quickly loaded aboard and chained to the deck, the ship blasting it's horn as it set off for Sodor. It was to be a long journey and Duncan couldn't expect anything of what was to happen next. All he really hoped right now was that no one on his new railway would notice all of his scratches. Most of the dents he had received at the factory had been banged out already, and the scratches had been concealed as best as they could be, but Duncan had one especially large one on the side of his smokebox a worker had left on him that refused to be concealed. The scratches always made Duncan self-conscious, and he felt ugly every time he saw them or someone else pointed them out. The more he fretted about it, the more aware he became of his scratches. He tried to push it down where he couldn't feel it and tried to distract himself.
He didn't want to go to Sodor, but Duncan couldn't wait to get away from Scotland.