The Express du Sud services a large portion of the mountain and features bubble chairs.The bottom terminal was built in two parts with a drive unit separate from the attach/detach building.There is also parking for the chairs and a grip bay.Parking area.Loading area.The drive bullwheel, smaller than line gauge in diameter.Riding up the lift.Arriving at the return.Top station overview.Underside of the return terminal.View up the line.Lower half of the lift.The first few towers.Tower 1.Side view of the bottom station.Side view of the motor room and tension carriage.
18 thoughts on “L’Express du Sud – Mont-Sainte-Anne, QC”
Kyle W.January 20, 2019 / 5:57 pm
I love seeing these early model detachable lifts. Stuff like this and the Alpha-Falcon combo on Pioneer at Winter Park show such an interesting time in lift development.
Killington, Pico, Mt. Snow, or Sunday River? How much old Yan hardware remains on the one you rode? Any moving catwalks? Chair bails? Bullwheels that look flat (like a giant CD with a hub in the middle)? Anything else? Honestly, I wish that I could say that I’ve ridden an old Yoppelmayr or Yoma (DoppelmaYan, PomaYan, whatever you wish to call it). Happy turns!
Bubble chairs as a whole sound like a maintenance nightmare. I don’t think most resorts realize what they are getting into when they install bubble chairs. Just look at what happened to all the 80s bubble chairs, almost all of the resorts bailed on them within 15 years.
Well, now it is different. Back then most Resorts didn’t use indoor parking for their bubble chairs. Also the EJ bubble chairs were poorly designed so most Resorts got rid of them on their Doppelmayr lifts.
Not nightmares- just labour-intensive. It takes me a full two days to tear down, NDT, and rebuild one of our bubble sixpack chairs (by myself). There are three of us who spend a lot of time there. If all three of us work together we can get that time down to one full day plus an hour next morning. That’s assuming we only have midday checks to attend to and no breakdowns. The rest of the lift is no different than any other we have.
Lift Blog 
I love seeing these early model detachable lifts. Stuff like this and the Alpha-Falcon combo on Pioneer at Winter Park show such an interesting time in lift development.
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I love old detachables. Just rode a Yan-Poma hybrid today for the first time.
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Killington, Pico, Mt. Snow, or Sunday River? How much old Yan hardware remains on the one you rode? Any moving catwalks? Chair bails? Bullwheels that look flat (like a giant CD with a hub in the middle)? Anything else? Honestly, I wish that I could say that I’ve ridden an old Yoppelmayr or Yoma (DoppelmaYan, PomaYan, whatever you wish to call it). Happy turns!
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There is also an Alpha Falcon at Snowmass (Coney Glade)
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R.I.P Coney Glade. It’s getting replaced with an LPA detachable for next season.
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The only one left in North America is Zephyr Express at Hunter Mountain, New York.
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What’s the point of the slatted seats if the bubble kind of defeats the purpose of that wind resistance?
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Cost.
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This lift was originally built without bubbles. They were added shortly after, but the slats were never replaced with the standard backs.
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The wind actually hits you from behind, kinda defeats the purpose (again) of the bubbles
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This lift is so cool! Old bubble chairs are cool since there aren’t very many of them around any more.
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It must be a maintenance nightmare!
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Bubble chairs as a whole sound like a maintenance nightmare. I don’t think most resorts realize what they are getting into when they install bubble chairs. Just look at what happened to all the 80s bubble chairs, almost all of the resorts bailed on them within 15 years.
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Well, now it is different. Back then most Resorts didn’t use indoor parking for their bubble chairs. Also the EJ bubble chairs were poorly designed so most Resorts got rid of them on their Doppelmayr lifts.
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Not nightmares- just labour-intensive. It takes me a full two days to tear down, NDT, and rebuild one of our bubble sixpack chairs (by myself). There are three of us who spend a lot of time there. If all three of us work together we can get that time down to one full day plus an hour next morning. That’s assuming we only have midday checks to attend to and no breakdowns. The rest of the lift is no different than any other we have.
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Come to Austria, we have plenty of 80ies bubble chair around!
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These chairs kind of look like the chairs on the Wenatchee Express at Mission Ridge, Washington.
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They’re both EJ bubble chairs, so normal they look alike.
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