Hi Frank,
yep, sure does. Its called rack and pinion and is very common in large plasma tables.
What you need to do is measure its backlash. I would suggest you use a dial gauge and see if you can measure any free movement by pushing the
gantry fore and aft. Ideally there would be no backlash but there will be. Some setups have the servo and pinion floating under spring pressure to
increase the engagement between the pinion and its rack. Its a good idea until the pinion gets worn then the peak of the teeth bottom in the groove
of the rack and will not allow any further engagement. This problem requires a good eye for mechanical detail to detect.
There are other methods for achieving low lash, variations on a split pinion, where two pinions along side each other engaged in the same rack but
with one pinion displaced, radially usually under spring pressure, by a fraction of a degree to effectively 'increase the width of the tooth to fill the gap'.
Clever, expensive and prone to wear.
No matter what if any backlash reducing system may be used its critical that you measure it. If its greater than 0.5mm you will have noticeable faults.
Craig