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Page 7 Dismantlement of the CITY OF MIDLAND 41 is under way at the Boat Mart in Midland, Michigan Melching obligingly escorted me aboard and down into the dark hold for a tour of the engine room. I had carried a large flashlight in anticipation of the poor light. Along with my autofocus camera with flash I was able to get some reasonable photographs. To a layman's point of view the engines appeared well maintained. As far as I know one of the last times they were in use was in 1985 when the ship went on a Lake Michigan "Friendship Cruise" including a port call at Muskegon. The twin-screw main engines were built by the Skinner Engine Company of Erie, PA and were the largest Marine Unaflow steam engines built up to that time. Each engine is a simple five cylinder direct connected unit of twenty-five inch bore by thirty inch stroke. They have a combined normal rating of six thousand shaft horsepower designed to carry a combined overload rating of seven thousand shaft horsepower at one hundred and twenty-five revolutions per minute. The engines could be stopped, started and reversed with the throttle wide open. There are no oil cups as the engines are entirely enclosed with all moving parts, except the pistons, being lubricated from an engine oiling system common to both engines. Steam for powering the Unaflow engines was originally furnished by four Foster-Wheeler Type "D", two drum, single casing, coal burning steam generators. They were eventually converted to oil. The engines were so located that the top cylinder heads and pistons could be removed for maintenance through a trap door located in the car deck floor between the rails of the two center tracks. The steering gear is a product of the Mantowoc Shipbuilding Company and consists of a main and auxiliary that are able to put the rudder from hard over Top: Port engine steam manifolds (Skinner Unaflow) Below: Plandished steel jacket fitted with removable doors with stainless steel port holes for viewing connecting rods and crank - all self lubricated and sealed. Author's Collection Author's Collection Author's Collection