Hello there!

I was always a fan of the older A trains, means 2D was my favor.
3D played too complicated for me :)
but I've played them all...and the simulation is really deep in both versions.

What's not so good is the tutorial thingy...if you need that after all.
In 9 there's nothing, you have to learn it all by yourself or youtube.
Which can be very frustrating but also achieving.
In classic you have a tutorial that is a little bit overambitious...
means they are talking like all day long and sometimes you have wait till you can go further.
Users also reported it can be buggy...but never experienced their problems.
They patched it so you can skip that tutorial(s) and begin with the real stuff.
But in the end its not that bad to play them thru.

BTW In Artdink's Carnage Heart EXA (psp) there was a tutorial which lasted for me two days... And in the end I couldn't figure out how to play this game in a good way...It was like programming apps, way too deep.

In comparison I can't say that much about A9...as I told 2D is my real love :)
I can only tell what is bad in A~classic:
~too much chattering, but you can skip/ignore that sometimes
~the "deadend" function is difficult to use/understand and it seems to be buggy
~graphics are a matter of taste, some tiles look a little bit shallow

Everything else is fine and I really had a lot fun but due lack of time I can't play that anymore...And you really need much time as you maybe know.

Before A~Classic came "international" I've watched this :
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC66lyHdCxjf8CiimVcoer9Q
It's in japanese but he's doing it with soul!
And you can see many in~game~details.
Understanding whats written in the menus is another thing :)

Hope that makes your decision!
~Greetings

thanks for that first answer, I really appreciate that you have taken so much time writing all that.

Hope to read more, as I haven't played any version other than V9

I really like this version. If you can cope with the graphics it is definitely worht buying. Many things were corrected like for example stockmarket. Thanks to the turorials I really got much more understanding of the game even though I played many earlier versions. Thanks to the simplification in rail placing one can put more effort in what is more important - planing. Timetables are now much better - simpler to use and more versatile. I think I like it most from all versions.

I honestly prefer the 2D interface, though it would be nice if the textures were higher resolution. I grew up with old school A-Train, so that's probably why.

Classic is harder if you go for gold on scenarios... some of them are absolutely unforgiving. So, if you play for challenge, Classic is the one to buy.

You know what? I just prefer Classic. The only nitpick I really have is that scheduling is too imprecise for some things they have attempted to implement. Any attempt to deadhead road traffic is an exercise in futility and I've yet to find an instance where an additional platform wasn't far more useful than a depot.