Out of a desire to have four trains regularly running at once each day on the DRR, in the mid-1990s the Disneyland park began to search for an additional narrow-gauge steam locomotive to add to the railroad's rolling stock. One such locomotive was acquired from Bill Norred in 1996 in exchange for the combine car and four coaches from the DRR's retired "Retlaw 1" passenger train set, but after the park received it, the new locomotive was deemed to be too large for the DRR's operations. It was then sent to the Walt Disney World Railroad in the Magic Kingdom park of Walt Disney World in Bay Lake, Florida, where the locomotive was dedicated, despite being too small for the railroad's operations, and named after Disney animator and rail enthusiast Ward Kimball. Still needing a fifth locomotive for the DRR, the park traded the "Ward Kimball" locomotive in 1999 to the Cedar Point & Lake Erie Railroad in the Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio, for a new locomotive suitable for the railroad. Named "Maud L.", the locomotive was built by Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1902 and was originally used to haul sugar cane at the Laurel Valley Sugar Plantation in Louisiana owned by the Barker and Lepine Company. After arriving in Disneyland, the "Maud L.", later renamed "Ward Kimball" like the locomotive for which it was traded, was given a new cab built by Disney and a new boiler built by Hercules Power, which was subcontracted by Superior Boiler Works.