Sounds like Transport Tycoon. I remember realising it said something about me that while my friends were building epic rollercoasters in Rollercoaster Tycoon I was much happier making train links between coal mines and power stations, creating a local and express rail serving linking a dozen cities…
Same! The other game that sequels never beat for me was Populous. There’s some charm in the first one that I love.
I still play the open source version from time to time. They have added a lot of new features and gameplay improvements.
https://www.openttd.org/