Comment by catalogia

For a few years after the introduction of electric motors they were still designing shops around line shafts with belt drives to every machine, because the electric motors were large and expensive enough that it didn't yet make sense to give each tool its own motor.

For instance the USS Olympia (C-6), commissioned in 1895 and now a museum ship in Philadelphia, was electrified but had a (very compact) line shaft machine shop on board.