Article sorting apparatus

An article sorting apparatus comprising:

• an article support body that forms a transport surface moving along a main transport direction, and that supports an article placed on the transport surface;
• a plurality of article lateral pushing bodies disposed so as to be arranged side by side along the main transport direction, each of the article lateral pushing bodies provided so as to be slidingly movable relative to the article support body in a width direction orthogonal to the main transport direction;
• a rectilinear-movement guide body that comprises a rectilinear-movement guide surface extending along the main transport direction, and that guides, with the rectilinear-movement guide surface, rectilinear movement of the article lateral pushing bodies along the main transport direction;
• a sliding guide body that comprises a sliding guide surface extending along an inclined transport direction inclined relative to the main transport direction, and that guides, with the sliding guide surface, the sliding movement of the article lateral pushing body;
• and
• a diverting mechanism disposed at a branching portion between a rectilinear-movement guide path formed by the rectilinear-movement guide body, and a slide guide path formed by the sliding guide body, and wherein the diverting mechanism diverts the article lateral pushing bodies to either a direction toward the rectilinear-movement guide path or a direction toward the slide guide path,
• wherein an upstream end portion of the sliding guide surface is disposed so as to be spaced apart, in the main transport direction across a separation region, from a downstream end portion of the diverting mechanism on the slide guide path side, and
• wherein the separation region comprises a contact start region that is a region in the main transport direction where each of the article lateral pushing bodies initially comes into contact with a target article that is the article to be sorted.