Ever since Gordon and Henry had come, Emily had been used on express trains less-and-less. Now she had mostly been relegated to stopping services. The new bunch of express locomotives on the island meant her only duty was now slow trains. Even Lily got to take passenger expresses at times. All this left Emily insecure about her future, wondering what her final fate would be.

She had experienced many things she never thought were possible. And that only helped sour her mood.

The next day after meeting Henry, she finally lost it, all thanks to a simple question from Dante.

"Everything good? You seem…"

"NOTHING'S OKAY, DANTE!" Emily snapped. "NOTHING. IS. OK!"

"Why? What's wrong?"

"Like you'd know!" scoffed Emily. "All you do is try to race around beating records that don't exist!"

Emily steamed off, leaving Dante at a loss for words.

Later, she was forced to stop at Wellsworth, giving her time to catch up with Selena.

"Hullo, Emily. Nice to see you again," she said. Emily said nothing, she just scoffed.

"Something on your mind?" asked Selena. Still, Emily didn't reply. "Well, if you ever want to talk…"

"ALL THESE NEW ENGINES! THAT'S MY PROBLEM!" Emily snapped. Selena found herself taken aback, but Emily continued. "NOW I'M STUCK ON SLOW TRAINS AND BEFORE LONG, THERE WON'T BE ANYTHING LEFT FOR ME TO DO! THEN I'LL BE SCRAPPED!"

Emily began breathing heavily, as all the passengers stared in surprise.

"Uh, Emily, if that were true, then why hasn't the Fat Director sold you off?" Selena asked slowly. Emily had no answer to that, but her scowl didn't leave her face. At that moment, the guard blew his whistle. The Stirling Single steamed off, still in a bad mood.

As Emily departed, Selena decided she'd speak to the Fat Director when she next saw him.

She found him when she arrived at Tidmouth and spoke about Emily.

"That is indeed very worrying," said the Fat Director. "Rest assured, she will not be scrapped: Jewelie will die if that happens. All the same, we do need to find something for her to do. I'll put her onto various other jobs and see how she handles them."

Fruit trains were a failure. Emily didn't like being demoted to slow fruit trains.

"Faster! Faster! The fruits go spoiled cause you're too slow!" the trucks would taunt.

When it came to fast goods, it was found her giant wheels meant she wasn't powerful enough for the heaviest of goods. At best, she could only manage 8 loaded trucks. The Fat Director even tried letting her take fast trains on the Arlesburgh Line. These connected with the steamer from the Isle of Man and took passengers directly to Tidmouth. That did work, but Gordon still taunted her.

"Reduced from top-link to branch line work, certainly glad you're giving your successors the chance they deserve."

"You deserve nothing. Nothing but the scrap heap!" shouted Emily. Gordon was taken aback.

"You got some nerve, Emily!" growled Gordon.

"I don't give a damn! You suck!" snapped Emily. It was clear she was losing her mind. "Now shove it and throw yourself off a cliff or something!"

Gordon didn't know what to say.

John tried to get to Emily. His success was little, however. Even Duke tried talking to Emily.

"Slow trains aren't really that bad," he told her. "They allow you to see sights you'd miss going at high speeds."

"I wasn't built for that. I was built to speed along the line, I even raced all the way to Scotland once!"

"You should really consider the fact you and I are still operating," Duke pointed out. "Our previous number 2, Carys, went into retirement at the age of 17, much younger than most other engines would. Were you aware of that?"

"I think I was told about it," said Emily slowly.

"Look, Emily, you may think you're too old to be useful, but that's never true. Stuart knows that all too well, right Stuart?"

The Tattoo, waiting for Falcon to arrive, looked down at his coupling.

"What exactly does Stuart have to do with this?" asked Emily.

"Well," said Duke, a grin forming on his face, "he once taunted me for…"

"ENOUGH!" Stuart shouted. "I already apologised sixty-nine times!"

He puffed off to the sheds, whooshing crossly.

"Ah, he'll get over it eventually," smiled Duke. "But trust me, Emily: you may be old, but you can still do a lot. After all, I'm on slow trains, as well as my Picnic."

Emily smiled. She felt a bit better now.

"Thanks, Duke."

"No worries."

Later on, Emily arrived at Tidmouth, ready to apologise to Gordon. However, she soon found the A0 wasn't in a forgiving mood.

"Now you come to apologise? Well, you can shove that up your arse! Honestly, only one of us should end at a scrapyard, and that is you," he scoffed.

"You don't mean that! Jewelie will die!" Emily protested.

"Well somebody's overdramatic," scoffed Gordon. Emily found she didn't need to say anything: a burp came out of her mouth.

"Ugh! That's disgusting!" Gordon shouted.

"Not as much as you," chuckled Emily. "Every night, I smell your tender rotting away."

Gordon's face went red, as his pressure spiked.

"Careful, Gordon, you don't want to burst anymore valves," said Emily.

"DON'T REMIND ME!" shouted Gordon, but this proved to be the straw that broke the camel's back: without warning, his safety valve…exploded! Both engines were covered in soot as a result of this.

"Wait a minute, safety valves can't explode!" his driver realised. "Alright, who here sabotaged my engine?!"

It took a while to clean Gordon, but Emily had no issues with being covered in soot. Straight away, she volunteered to take Gordon's next express run.

"What?! Taking my express…LIKE THAT?! Are you not ashamed about your image?!"

"Image is nothing on this railway," said Emily. "If it was, everybody would die the moment they saw you."

The passengers gathered around Emily as she backed onto the coaches.

"Now THIS is how a steam engine should look!" one of them remarked. "Dirt is a sign that you aren't afraid of getting dirty if it means getting a job done."

Gordon lost his voice after hearing that. Even more so when Emily managed to take all eleven coaches out of the station with no trouble at all.

"Wait a minute, how was she able to handle eleven coaches, yet could only pull eight trucks?" Dante asked. Nobody had an answer.

Emily couldn't go as fast as Gordon, but found she could still keep to time. To her own surprise, she managed to climb Gordon's Hill rather easily, and stopped at Maron fifteen seconds ahead of schedule. Even so, she was rather exhausted when she finally got to Barrow in the evening.

"A single?!" asked the engine taking over, a Midland Compound. "You managed to keep to time?!"

"Yes, I did. Got any problem with that?"

The Compound steamed away, impressed. Too tired to make a return run to Tidmouth, Emily simply went into Barrow-in-Furness engine shed, falling asleep as soon as she was inside.

The next morning, the Fat Director came to see her.

"I am impressed, Emily. Looks like you were able to keep to time just as well as Gordon."

"Wasn't really easy, sir," said Emily. "In fact, after that run, I think I much prefer slow trains. Albeit I am willing to embark myself on more expresses, if needed to."

The Fat Director smiled, and nodded. He completely understood.

Gordon never taunted or mocked Emily after that. Not if she had anything to say about it.