The engineering section (department) of any ship provides a crucial function for the ship; a means to get to where you want to go. The engineering force are the unsung heroes of the ship. They do a dirty job maintaining and repairing the engines and other related systems to keep the ship moving. It remains this way today. In the early part of the 1900s, ships were mainly coal fired and this meant hours of shoveling coal into hot furnaces in order keep the steam plant running.