Abstract: A gear train mechanism includes a housing having side walls that are made of a material exhibiting a modulus of elasticity of at least 140 GPa. A pair of shafts is supported by slide bearings in the housing and exhibit a length of at least of 1.3 times the diameter of the shafts. A first gear of external-tooth type is mounted on one shaft and is defined by an addendum diameter, a top land width and a circular pitch, with the top land width being at least 15% of the circular pitch. A second gear is mounted on the other shaft and is in mesh with the first gear, with both gears disposed between the side walls, wherein the side walls have a wall thickness of at least 75% of the addendum diameter.

Abstract: A loading apparatus for elongated articles comprises a first conveying device for transporting the articles from a ready-supply station to an aligning and gathering apparatus and then to a layer-forming apparatus, from where they are transported layerwise by means of a second conveying device into a container in which they are stacked in layers on a support which is lowerable stepwise. The first conveying device comprises a plurality of beams which are movable in and oppositely to the conveying direction and are liftable and lowerable. The aligning and gathering apparatus comprises a plurality of abutments past which the beams are movable, the articles lying on them being held fast so that they are aligned parallel to each other and pushed into lateral contact with each other. The layer-forming apparatus comprises a stationary support whose supporting surface is just as wide as one layer in the container.

Abstract: A method and an apparatus for conveying articles from at least one magazine to several depositing areas includes a continuous, endless conveyor by which the articles are transported from the magazine to predetermined positions which extends on the conveyor below the depositing areas at equal distance b to each other. The number of positions corresponds to the number of depositing areas. Moreover lifting units are provided of a number corresponding to the number of predetermined positions for transporting the articles from the positions to the depositing areas. The conveyor is moved step-by-step at a step length s=b/(n-1) wherein b is the distance between two adjacent positions and n is the number of positions or the number of steps. The magazine has a distance a=s.multidot.x from the one position closest in conveying direction wherein x is an integer.