In September of 2025, my work is generating the most income it ever has in my career. Yet, I'm being forced to shut down my successul operation, against my will, due to one cause alone: 95% of that revenue is being stolen by piracy and copyright infringement. I've lost more than $1 million to copyright infringement in the last 15 years, and it's finally brought an end to my professional storm chasing operation. Do not be misled by the lies of infringers, anti-copyright activists and organized piracy cartels. This page is a detailed, evidenced account of my battle I had to undertake to just barely stay in business, and eventually could not overcome. It's a problem faced by all of my colleagues and most other creators in the field.
I bought new tires this week on a nice 60-degree day in St. Albans. I had some waiting time during the process, so I took a short walk along the tracks. This first view is looking east down the long straight stretch, maybe the longest straight section of track in the state that I know of. The opposite end of this is all the way past the Kanawha Terrace intersection with US 60 - about 4 miles from end-to-end, remarkable for being in this type of terrain. The train in the distance is somewhere around Spruce Street.
At the far end of the straightaway is the location of the former Chef Wong's restaurant, a relic of my childhood and a place that was once one of my family's longest-running traditions (I had my first meal there at age 2, no wonder I love Chinese food). The building burned down many years ago after Chef Wong moved out to the Southridge shopping center. Walking up to the tracks behind Chef Wong's yielded a great long-distance view to the west, with many sets of signals from the foreground to the background all the way into downtown St. Albans (where these pictures were taken). As a kid, for me it was always a cool thing to watch all the signals change from red to yellow to green, in succession down the line, in advance of an approaching westbound train. Either that, or watch an eastbound's headlight appear in the distance and watch it slowly get closer (as I did with this westbound here). All of the signals in this image are new, (sadly) replacing the old classic C&O signals and cantilevers in use since the 1930s and 40s.
Looking west now at the bridge over the Coal River. The tower in the background is the 1,500 foot WVAH TV mast, the one I frequent for upward lightning shots during storm season. It's a good 4 miles away from where I'm standing here, which gives you an idea of its size:
On another tangential note - the signal indication above (red over green) means the train is about to switch tracks ('cross over' to an adjacent track). When the green (or yellow) is on top, the train will continue straight. In most CSX ex-C&O territory, the signals remain red by default until a train is manually cleared through by the dispatcher. At that point the signals will change to some configuration other than all red (a mixture of green, yellow and red). So, if you see any greens or yellows on a C&O-style signal, that means a train is not far away. A useful tidbit to know if you're waiting for a train to photograph. The signals go back to red once the locomotives pass.
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From Dan: Please Read
To my regular readers, I offer my apologies for this heavy-handed notice. Unfortunately it has become necessary, so please bear with me!
Please don't copy/upload this site's content to social media or other web sites. Those copies have been a critical problem for me, seriously harming this site and my photography/storm chasing operation by diverting traffic, viewers, engagement and income. "Credit" and "exposure" does not benefit this site or my operation, rather they threaten my ability to cover my operating expenses. Please read my full explanation for this notice here.
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