The cat is finally out of the bag or perhaps the mouse is out of the hole. A photo was recently posted on a Disney discussion forum showing the Lilly Bell in Strasburg's paint shop. Here is a photo of it in the shop and one of it in service, it is a sharp looking engine when fully assembled!
A little known fact about these locomotives is that the boilers and smokeboxes were resized to allow them to be "scaled down" so that they would fit the desired coach and station sizes.

John

I have a good friend that is working on the railroad down there. That was always my favorite of the Florida engines. Even rode the cab once. If you are interested in Disney railroads, check out burnsland.com. Some interesting stuff gets posted there from time to time.

So this means there are now two "Lilly Belle"'s on the railroad?

The engine and the private car?

The locomotive "Lilly Belle" runs on the Walt Disney World RR in Florida. The private car "Lilly Belle" runs on the Disneyland RR in California.

According to posts in this thread over at WDWMagic, #2 is going to be replaced with a brand-new locomotive. According to one poster:

I'm just wondering how I didn't notice Lilly Bell in the shop when I took the tour over Memorial Day.

I'm thinking it was probably because it "was in the shop" two years ago (look at the date of the original post on this thread).

sc 'doc' lewis

Does anybody know the current status of this locomotive, other than this "rumor" from Disney fans?

One thing I have to say is there may be some sort of truth to the rumors; check out the commentary on No. 2 in the Wikipedia entry below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney_World_Railroad

"Due to frame issues, Lilly Belle does not run in regular service. It is used exclusively for the daily park opening ceremonies along with its original set of coaches, all of which with the exception of one have not been fitted with the new side panels to allow the characters to disembark from the train unimpeded. It is also used as a standby locomotive in the event that any of the other three locomotives fail in service."

Sad in two ways, one of which is that she's named for Disney's wife, who was apparently a very important person to him (even if she didn't like trains running in her yard). Secondly, in my opinion, this is the best looking engine on the Florida roster.

Having said that brings up several questions:

1. If the No. 2 really is to be retired, what is likely to become of it? Sale? Display in Florida? What?

2. If there is to be a replacement, what is it likely to be? Will it be a totally new engine, along the lines of Northern Central's No. 17 or the Klokes' Leviathan? Or will it be another narrow-gauge locomotive brought in for overhaul, as the original four were? What would be the likely locomotive for such work, if that option were chosen?

3. Just for fun, I wonder what the reaction from the personnel and the crowds would be if Disney World went for "modern" steam power? In this case, I'm thinking of a lease, for say, five years or so, from a road that does have some extra locomotives.

http://www.railarchive.net/randomsteam/ebt15.htm

Talk about a change of image for Disney World!

When the idea of "modern" steam power was raised, I thought, we must be talking about the 1920s, because that was about the last time that anyone was building 36" gauge steam locomotives other than a few one-offs. And I think the engines of that era were a lot more "industrial" looking than the 1880s styling that the present Disney locomotives use. One might also wonder if 2-8-0s or 2-8-2s would work well on a loop layout. I've never been to the Florida park, so my Disney train experiences have been with the original Magic Kingdom in Anaheim.

I would imagine it would have to be a brand new locomotive. Don't know of any railroad or museum that has a 36" gauge locomotive they're looking (or willing) to part with

That'd do it.

Well, East Broad Top has 6 3 foot gauge steam locomotives, 2 of which were last run more that half of their lifetimes ago.