Abstract: A basket structure for supporting mail trays between varying elevations relative to a workplace supporting planar floor in cooperation with a mail sorting machine having a plurality of sorting bins disposed laterally in spaced relation along the horizontal axis of the sorting machine at a predetermined elevation. The basket structure is moveable between a storage position at a first lower elevation and an access position at a second higher elevation horizontally adjacent to the predetermined elevation of the bins whereby the mail in the bins can be readily moved by an operator between at least one of the bins to an adjacent at least one of the mail trays that is substantially horizontally aligned with the at least one bin.

Abstract: In a combination document feed system and document removal assembly associated with the document feed system for removing documents one at a time from a stack of documents disposed in the document feed system and feeding each document into a document transport system: comprising a document removal assembly for providing a substantially elongated contact surface between the document removal assembly and a lead document in the stack of documents, the contact surface adapted to alternately contact the lead document and advance the lead document from the document feed system to the document transport system. The document feed system includes belts for advancing the stack of documents toward a document removal assembly, including a back plate adapted to provide a compressive force to the rear of the stack of documents.

Abstract: A document transport system for transporting documents of varying thicknesses along a document path comprising a document drive assembly forming one side of the document path, an idler roller assembly forming an opposite side of the document path, the document drive assembly including a moving belt adapted to engage each document and move each document along the document path, the idler roller assembly including a plurality of idler rollers adapted to move automatically and manually, alternately, between a first position contacting the moving belt when no documents are present in the document path and contacting the documents when present in the document path, and a second position out of contact with the moving belt or the documents, thereby forming a gap between the idler rollers and the moving belt, the idler rollers being connected by a lost motion connection to an idler release lever, whereby the idler release lever remains stationary when the idler rollers move automatically between the first position a