Something I only came across only in the last few years on how quite straightforward a steam line shaft shop would have operated. This guy is running one out of his shed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WXHNBMLZZM. If you watch this you can also see how straightforward it was to retrofit electric motors to the existing belt drive mechanism, but you can see why it was slow to adopt. If you take into the early adopter concerns, the mains reliability concerns and a general risk-averse outlook lightbulbs are a better sell then electric motors.