Well she's been the parade/show train and hasnt been in passenger service for ages now. Whats the deal in PA? Getting rehabbed? Gone to the great museum in Strausberg?
She's getting an overhaul. Much needed, as she was somewhat temperamental, and a bit of a diva.
I'm told she had some frame issues and a crack in her smokebox, all of which are being addressed along with other needed repairs, which should put her back in regular service finally. Although she's had a few refurbs, I believe she's still working with some original 60s/70s parts, on top of the use these engines get. Lilly Belle was actually the first locomotive finished and delivered to the property, summer of 1971.
WDW originally had 5 locomotives purchased for the MK. Roger B. and Earl V. only planned on purchasing 4 engines, but they spotted a 5th matching locomotive in a park across the street from the yard in Mexico, and asked if they could pick that one up too. It was cheap, so they did. The 5th locomotive was a matching type to the Lilly Belle, but was found to be older and too far gone when it was opened up in Tampa. It was sent to CA, stored for a bit, then eventually sold.
Separately, there is one more recent time frame where there were actually 5 engines in service at WDW, like @
lazyboy97o said above. In 1974, the Retlaw-1 train was retired from service at Disneyland. The cars of Walt's original - and favorite - train were stored in the back of the DL roundhouse for the next 18 years. In 1992, Bill Norred, a rail collector, approached Disney to acquire the Retlaw-1 train with the support of the Disney family, as he was afraid it would be scrapped or fall into disrepair. In 1996, Disney agreed to trade him the Retlaw train cars for one of his Forney locomotives, to be used as a replacement spare while the existing Disneyland locomotives were being taken offline for rebuilding. Turned out the Forney was too big for DL's trains, so it was shipped to WDW, where it was used briefly while Lilly was taken offline for refurbishment. Then it turned out the Forney "Ward Kimball" was too small to be used efficiently for WDW's operations. It was then traded to Cedar Fair for the "Maud L", a non-working Baldwin locomotive, properly sized for Disneyland operations. The Baldwin was rebuilt and is the current operating DL Ward Kimball Engine No. 5.
