The Areal Lift Bridgewas originally designed as a Transporter bridgein 1905. It was upgraded to an areal lift in 1930 and is still in operation except for an extreme spell of hot weather where the bridge was shut down because the heat put such stress on the bridge that many rivets were sheared off from the expansion of the metal.
The Center Street Swing Bridge in Cleveland, OH has been operating since 1901.
Though it’s stalled out twice this season, so it’s anyone’s guess how long it’ll continue to be in use.
The same basic design has been used to pump ground water to the surface in outback Australia since the mid 1800’s
If you’re going by “basic design”, the shadoof* has that beat all hollow, being datable back to 2000 BCE.
Other human constructions are a LOT older – fish weirs, whistles, stone tools of all kinds, but they don’t qualify as machines, in most people’s definitions. Are atlatkls machines? They date back to at least 30,000 years, and some folks still use them.
But all of these, no matter how you classify them, aren’t what I think the OP was after – things that we’d call “machines” and the actual device itself still in regular use.
*One of many spellings.
Not as one plane, but most of the bodywork is going to be from a plane built in 1963 or before…
One air frame with issues may have the wings from some other plane installed, it may have the fuselage sections replaced similarly…
The issue with replacing every single part of the body doesn’t exist, SOME joints in the structure get replaced as that is where the bending causes cracking.
They have plenty of spare parts since the 1990’s destruction of the 52G’s, and therefore only flying 80 52H’s now, due to the treaty with the Russians.
In terms of HEAVY engineering, London’s Tower Bridge was opened in 1894… and is still in use.
The only original part of the mechanics though are the big gears that attach to the lifting the spans…
The original mechanism to rotate those gears was only replaced in 1974 though, that was heavy engineering in service for 84 years… Well of course steam engines that powered it were repaired … There were 2 and then 3… so they could rebuild one while the other was in use.
In terms of still working mechanisms, Hawthorne Bridge, USA, opened 1910, and while it had the upper pulleys replaced, its otherwise seemingly original and still lists 200 times a month.
Its probably due to the use of electric motors… new mechanisms are not required if it was originally designed to be electric… so around 1910… they started using electrics.
I’m certain that an ancient mortar and pestle sets thousand of years old are still being used somewhere. Either in a modern kitchen in some rich persons house or in a third world village where things are used as long as they are useful.
150 year old pianos and even older harpsichords still work. But Stradivarius violins and other strings are not only fully functional but considered superior to their modern counterparts.
Cuba is reportedly full of 60 year old cars.
There is a functioning Jacquard loom in a textile museum in Kyoto that is well over 100 years old. However the operator admitted that the punch card reader had been electrified and the cards themselves for the design he was working on had been punched by a computer. But the complex design he was working on required hundreds of cards, as well as some hand work.
That’s a really good point, actually, though “considered” may be all we have.
This Salisbury Cathedral clock is something truly remarkable. It’s builder would probably be proud to see it still running. But to be honest I think it would be more practical to replace it now with something else so it is “just” a novelty in that sense.
For me it now seems the oldest useful, still practical thing that is without any doubt a machine could be some factory equipment from 19th century.
This is also why you rarely find Yugos on the road today, but you can find plenty of Toyota Corollas from that same era still out there.
In Chicago, Buckingham Fountain has three big pumps, each one being original 1927 DeLaval hardware.
This are still available brand-new in developing nations such as the Pacific Islands where electricity is intermittent or none.
The clock at St. Etienne Cathedral in Beauvais, France gets a good many mentions, mainly as a tourist attraction. Unlike the Salisbury clock, it’s provenance does not seem to have been authenticated and I can find no drawings or pictures of the mechanism.
It should not be confused with the much later and more elaborate astrological clock at the same location.
I’m certain I remember it being heavily refurbished, back when I was a kid.
It was rehabilitated in 1989 and again in 2010. Both rehabilitation projects were for the mechanical and electrical components. The structural components of the bridge are still mostly original.
WWII era C-46 cargo planes are still being used in their original role http://www.icepilots.com/fleet_c46.php
Bottle and can openers. And they are machines, not mere tools! That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Can openers have been around less long than cans. By quite a margin. :smack: