Amtrak says an electric company wants to take it for a ride

Updated: December 22, 2016 — 7:00 PM EST

by Andrew Maykuth, STAFF WRITER @Maykuth

Amtrak says PPL Electric Utilities wants to take it for a ride. ... The National Railroad Passenger Corp., better known as Amtrak, has filed a formal complaint alleging that a 153 percent electric-rate increase that would apply only to the railroad is “unjust, unreasonable and unduly discriminatory.”

The complaint, filed Monday with the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, says the rate hike would boost Amtrak’s costs by $2.3 million a year. The nonprofit railroad buys electricity to power Northeast Corridor trains and its service between Philadelphia and Harrisburg. ... The power dispute was triggered by an October request from the Allentown utility to increase the rate for “electric-propulsion service,” which applies to only one customer: Amtrak.
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In its filing, PPL says it needed to increase Amtrak’s monthly customer-service charge from $126,324 to $319,671 to pay for a $24 million upgrade to a Depression-era electrical substation that serves only Amtrak. The fixed fee does not include the cost of electricity, which Amtrak buys separately from a supplier.

PPL’s aging Conestoga Substation in Lancaster County takes electricity generated by Safe Harbor Water Power Corp. at a Susquehanna River hydroelectric project and converts its voltage for transmission to Amtrak’s rail lines in Pennsylvania and Maryland. The power is converted by electrical transformers. ... PPL owns four of Conestoga’s seven transformers, which it says are more than 75 years old and “actively leaking oil and nitrogen.” It says the substation’s insulators are also beginning to crack. An insulator “flashover” — a high-voltage short-circuit — knocked out the dam’s generators in 2014.