A couple of things I discovered. You need to rename both the freight stop itself and the name on the ‘flag’. Getting ine early with a bus station near the railway station reduces congestion later on, but you have to do this beforet new buildings close to the railway station crowd out the space.

I group tram stations/stops that are right next to train stations…thus making the large tram station parked at the train station’s entrance the same stop. Not sure what the advantage is of doing that, if the two are un-grouped they work the same.  Only reason I keep doing it is because I saw someone in a German video doing it. LoL So I would love to know the scoop on the grouping as well.

1. Sometimes if you group stations of different means of transportation (bus and train, for instance), the lines going thru them are not recognized of the proper type: a bus line is seen as a train line or the like.
2. If you “ungroup” a previously grouped station (bus+train), a line can become useless: for instance, a train trying to go to the former bus station part of the grouped station.

The game also seems to automatically group bus stations you place on the two sides of the same street.  That is sometimes inconvenient if you want the line to pass in a certain direction and it does in the opposite.  The solution is easy: ungroup them.

I usually group stations – a passenger train station has a bus/tram station attached, and goods stations where lorries arrive and trains leave (or vice versa) I group, as well.  But that’s more OCD than gameplay.

On one hand, they’re still separate stations: If you don’t click on the icon but on the actual station graphics, you can see that the merged station still retains its original name, internally.

You can use that to guide the lines somewhat: If you create a bus line through one of those stations where stops on either side of the road are grouped automatically, you can click the bus stop graphic (that little hut) instead of the icon, and the line uses specifically that stop (and not the one on the opposite side). Problem is that this often gets jumbled when the line is changed and redrawn later on – the game redraws the line using the combined station.

On the other hand, they’re combined for the purpose of line assignment: The line uses the grouped name for the whole stations. That’s why, if you separate them, some lines don’t work any more – they’re trying to use the station name that now belongs to the wrong type.

#1 in isidoro’s post can happen, but is immediately corrected when you assign vehicles to that line: If you create a line between two grouped stations (rail+road), the game guesses whether it should draw the line graphic on the road or the rail connection; if you assign a vehicle to that line, it switches to the correct mode of transportation. I think (though I’m not sure) that you should be able to avoid this by choosing the correct station part when creating the line, instead of using the icon (or the other half).

But in the end, it’s basically cosmetics.

Also, see this post. Doesn’t say much but is related

/forums/topic/stations-have-2-names/

• less (minor) glitches during modification works of lines (mentioned above)
• a more clear report about waiting passengers or cargo: per line a status, in stead of one global status.

The fact that two opposite stops are grouped by default, is a gain (again in the screen clutter department).