Oh dear I was hoping nobody would ask me that. The last time I had to deal with these was in 1970 for three months. Most of my time then was spent removing and replacing broken loom crank shafts and not actually working on running machines. Here I go making a fool of myself. The diagrams you are looking at are an actual cross section of the weaving process. As I remember it the " Sley ", carrying the " Reed ", rocks back and forth off a lower pivot tightening up the cloth as it goes. The Reed itself is a frame carrying lots of vertical wires, the threads ( warp ? ) goes between the wires. The " Healds" shoot up and down in conjunction with the sley allowing the shuttle carrying the weft to weave the cloth. I'll ask my mum next time we speak for the real info. She ran a dozen " Northrop " Automatic Battery looms which were actually made in Blackburn, I believe the late Fred Pickering started out as an apprentice at " Northrop's ".
I can't be the only one on here who's seen a loom working surely. Blackburn was a textile town with lots of weaving sheds back in the day.