> ...all out in the open exposed to dirt...
Back in the day, I suspect they'd have covered much of that with tin* or wood, to cut down on cleaning, maintenance, & wear.
*Meaning "cheap, thin sheet metal"
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I strongly suspect that they used oil, not grease, so they could flush the dirt out of the gears, and that this would have been done very frequently.
You need tacky grease for open-air applications where centrifugal force will throw oil off the gears. Like this stuff.[1] I use that on open gearing in Teletype machines.