Drive system for a mail processing machine

A drive system for a mail processing machine, said mail processing machine comprising:

• (a) a first conveyor chain being continuously moved and having first document feeding sections defined by first feeding fingers;
• (b) a second conveyor chain following that first conveyor chain in feeding direction, being moved intermittently and having second document feeding sections defined by second feeding fingers;
• and
• (c) said second conveyor chain taking over sets of documents from said first conveyor chain and, in operation, advances said sets of documents to a handling station with increased speed;
• and said drive system comprising a common driving motor serving for driving horizontal, parallel driving shafts of said first and second conveyor chains, respectively, said common driving motor having an output shaft which is parallelly oriented to said first and second driving shafts and which is coupled to said first driving shaft of said continuously moved first conveyor chain via three horizontally oriented bevel gears of a bevel gear drive, the respective axes of said bevel gears consecutively defining 90° angles, and wherein said output shaft is furthermore coupled to said second driving shaft of said intermittently moved conveyor chain via a step gear drive, the input shaft and the output shaft of said step gear drive having respectively opposite sense of rotation and being oriented parallelly to said first and second driving shafts.