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Early Drive Systems - Line Shafting Until the 1930s, and in some cases for very much longer, most machine shops had what would today be grandly called an "Integrated Power System". At the heart of the system was a lovingly-cared-for engine, steam or electric, that drove, via a convoluted belt and rope system, a labyrinthine maze of pulleys hanging from bearings attached to girder work inside the roof of the factory; that part of the drive system held in the ceiling was referred to as "line shafting". Each machine was attached to the shafting by a wide, flat belt, usually between 1 and 6 inches wide with some sort of ancillary-control system that involved the use of "fast-and-loose" pulleys. The latter was a simple but ingenious system that involved the driven belt running first over a "loose" or free pulley and, from that position, being able to be flicked across to a "fast" pulley clamped to the shaft. Finally, another belt and pulley set took the drive down to a machine on the floor below. Methods of moving the belt were numerous and ingenious from a length of broom handle to sophisticated and expensive controls involving foot pedals, wires, links, bell-cranks and toggles. Once an overhead drive system had been (expensively) installed in a specially-prepared building, the nightmare of maintaining and constantly overhauling the multitude of bearings and hangers, inconveniently and dangerously located ten or twenty feet in the air, could begin. No wonder Works Engineers clocked-off dreaming of a better solution; their salvation eventually came in the form of the small, high-speed electric motor that was able to provide each machine with its own, independent power source. The tricky installation of a drive system could now be delegated to the machine maker and, besides all the other advantages, if you fell out with your landlord it was possible to pull out of your Victorian dungeon and move across the road, or town, to somewhere both more convivial and cheaper. It also meant that, with an appropriate electricity supply, you could arrange your machines to optimise the production requirements of any particular job and quickly rearrange them again when it became necessary. Meanwhile, George, down the road, stuck in his old-fashioned premises, still had to employ labourers with wheelbarrows to shift 200 lb lumps of cast iron from one end of the factory to the other as a job zigzagged haphazardly around the various machine tools. Another factor, and now a long-forgotten problem, was the question of light; because there was no electricity to illuminate their interiors Victorian factories had huge numbers of tall windows, glass inserts in the roof and, for preference, were always sited and aligned to make the most of available daylight. The original heavy and cumbersome wrought-iron overhead line shafting and belts did an excellent job of blocking light and even the advent of stronger, lighter and thinner steel components in the mid 1800s did not significantly improve matters - thus the advent of individually-powered machines meant that (just as the light bulb came into use and night shifts started) factories became much lighter, safer and more efficient places in which to work.
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