Engines & Reduction Gears In 1769, James Watt, a Scottish engineer, redesigned a Newcomen steam engine, giving it rotary motion with a sun-gear and making it a practical device for various commercial and industrial applications. Although a number of mills still preferred to locate by rapid flowing streams, others could now be located in other advantageous areas by use of the steam engine. It is recorded that by 1800, 63 giant steam engines were powering textile mills in Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester. Some engines drove over 1,000 looms in a single factory. The economy of building multistory factories was discovered, and freight lifts were increasingly driven off line-shafts that ran along the ceilings of all levels. Whereas production machinery operated in one direction, lifts had to move both up and down. One of the two belts to the lift reduction gear was therefore twisted so that a manual shifter could alternate belts and reverse the direction of the lift.