[User23]

A wood fired still might be a reasonable way to turn biomass into fuel.

And while farming may seem like back-breaking labor to the Aeron chair set, it’s really not that bad. You are tied to the land, but in the scenario that’s under discussion a Disney cruise vacation isn’t in the cards anyhow. You’ll want to have draft animals though of course as tractor replacements.

[groby_b]

You need the still to start with :) But even then, you need the wood to fire them.

But yes, with draft animals you can make a go of it. It just won't leave you a lot of time to tinkertoy with the "leftover machines".

I don't think it's an unsurvivable scenario per se. I just think that the idea that you already have a starting point for an industrialized civilization is either quite naive, or takes a quite liberal view of "starting point".