Hitachi Ltd. opened a train manufacturing plant in Miami, its first in the U.S., to build Metrorail vehicles for the area. Hitachi Rail USA will build 136 cars at the factory to replace Miami-Dade County’s Metrorail fleet beginning this month, the Tokyo-based company said in a statement Thursday. The first new vehicles are scheduled go into service in late-2017, Hitachi said. The Japanese maker of bullet trains, nuclear power stations and industrial machinery is expanding its overseas rail operations amid easing domestic demand as the population shrinks. The company bought the rail business of Italy’s Finmeccanica SpA and a stake in a signals affiliate last year and built a train factory in the U.K. The production facility is projected to create 100 jobs in the county in addition to subcontracts, Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez said in the statement. Production of the Metrorail cars will continue until the first half of 2019, according to the statement. Hitachi shares rose 1.6 percent to 540.3 yen as of 10:11 a.m. in Tokyo trading. They have dropped 22 percent this year, compared with a 9.5 percent decline for Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average.