I would love to play a modern version of this. Probably true for other strategy classics like Master of Magic, Master of Orion 2, Colonization.
Edit: ha, I remember that I used a really good tactic of playing with competitors' stocks, gaining majority, siphoning tons of money from them, and then selling the stocks. More profitable than running actual railroads.
Steam and GoG have a version of Railroad Tycoon 2 which works well on modern machines:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/7620/Railroad_Tycoon_II_P...
https://www.gog.com/en/game/railroad_tycoon_2
Not quite as old-school as the first version, but IMHO gameplay-wise "just right".
Chris Sawyer made a lot of games that have since been reverse engineered lmao.
Young folks can use dosbox etc... but it just does not feel the same compared to how it was "originally". I could not get myself to want to play raildroad tycoon again; I found it easy to play games such as civilization or UFO: Enemy Unknown (oddly enough the first part is more playable than the second part here).
The modern equivalents (I'm thinking of Transport Fever 2) while they are fun games just lacks the ability to build and manipulate a real economy by doing things like e.g. putting an industry in a town and then transporting goods there to satisfy the industry, making both your train line and the industry wildly profitable.
Usually dry as sand, but some of the heaviest games out there in terms of complexity.