ORLANDO, Fla. — The company that promises high-speed rail service from South Florida to Orlando by late next year declared itself halfway home Wednesday.

During a festive announcement at its partially built $100 million vehicle maintenance facility, Brightline boasted more than 50% completion of its rail line that will connect West Palm Beach to Orlando International Airport.

“Today we’re halfway home to Orlando as we progress toward completion of one of the nation’s most significant transportation projects,” Brightline CEO Mike Reininger told a crowd that included politicians and dozens of workers in hard hats.

Officials hailed the project as a boon for Central Florida’s roads, economy and environment, with trains that run on what it calls clean biodiesel. They said it would reduce car use, cut congestion and emissions and create more than 2,000 post-construction jobs in Florida.

Brightline says the rail construction to Orlando employs more than 1,000 workers, plus 160 skilled and so-called craft employees at the 154,500-square-foot vehicle maintenance facility south of Orlando International.

The company also says its trains travel up to 125 mph and will get passengers from Orlando to Miami in about three hours.

CEO Reininger hailed the project as “a powerful example to those across the country who are calling for the creation of a national high-speed rail network.”

The project stands as another effort amid climate change and increased crowding to make Central Florida a crucial component of a high-tech transportation system.

Late last year, officials from the City of Orlando, Lilium and Tavistock Development Company announced plans for an urban and regional air-mobility network that would feature electricity-powered jets that would take off and land vertically and, by 2025, link Orlando to cities throughout Florida’s peninsula.

Brightline says its extension will connect Orlando to current operations in West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Miami — with a later goal to connect Orlando to Disney World and Tampa.

“We need for this project to go to Tampa,” said Mike Cegelis, Brightline’s executive vice president for development and construction. “Connecting South Florida to Orlando is a big deal. But we’re not going to push this over the top and have a connected rail system in our state unless we connect to Tampa.”

Reininger said the network aims “to connect city pairs that are too short to fly and too long to drive.”

Festivities at Wednesday’s event included the signing by dignitaries and others of a 12-foot rail that Brightline says will become part of the 170-mile extension.

“It’s a time to celebrate some milestones and look forward to when the train will pull into the station,” Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer told Spectrum News after the event.

“This is the wave of the future,” Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings told us. “It’s environmentally friendly to us because we get individuals out of automobiles that create congestion on our roadways. It creates jobs that will be here after this construction project ends.”

But not everybody is pleased with it. Community groups in Hunter’s Creek, north of Kissimmee, reportedly plan to fight Brightline over tracks proposed to run along State Road 417. They cite safety, noise and concern about property values.

Reininger said his company has had “a couple of meetings” with Hunter’s Creek groups.

“As we’ve built the system out today, along the state of Florida, we’ve gone through various communities and metropolitan areas, etc., and in every one of those instances, we opened dialog,” Reininger told Spectrum News after Wednesday’s event. “We listen carefully to concerns that any community group or homeowners association might have.”