The Florida East Coast Railway, a legendary company that played a key role in spurring the state’s population boom in the first decades of the last century, has announced ambitious plans for passenger rail service between Miami and Orlando, with planned average speeds of 100 miles per hour, well in excess of the actual average speed achieved by Amtrak’s Acela between New York and Boston.

To complete the 240-mile planned route, the FEC would have to build 40 miles of track inland to Orlando. Apart from connecting several of the state’s most populous metropolitan areas for passenger service, this expansion would introduce new competition for freight traffic. Mina Kimes of Fortune has documented the growing power of the major U.S. freight trail companies (four companies control 90% of rail freight), and so the FEC’s expansion could be a test case of whether renewed railroad entrepreneurship could help break the cartel.

Stephen Smith, easily one of the best reporters cover transportation and urban policy, has a detailed account. He observes that because the railroad focuses on time-sensitive intermodal freight, it is far more well-suited to passenger service than freight rail companies that focus on slow-moving bulk freight. Moreover, he anticipates potential resistance from organized labor; while large numbers of railroads were going out of business in the 1960s and 1970s, the FEC survived in part by resisting the demands of its unions and rolling back seniority rules and “featherbedding.” Given the strength of organized labor at Amtrak, this might make for an interesting contrast if the railroad is given a real opportunity to demonstrate the viability of private passenger rail.