Hitachi’s new $100 million railcar factory in Western Maryland is using AI-powered robotic dogs, 3D vision inspections and other digital tools to make what it calls trains of the future.

Hitachi Rail, the global maker of Japan’s high-speed bullet trains, marked the opening Monday of a factory two years in the making. Transit systems in Baltimore and Washington have lined up among the first customers.

Hitachi, which has rail plants in Japan, Italy and the United Kingdom, had been producing rail cars at a now-closed Miami plant and selected a new site in Hagerstown two years ago as part of an expansion to meet a growing U.S. demand.

Officials said the Washington County site offers access both to workers needed for as many as 500 jobs and to customers in the Northeast corridor, representin

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