I have tried it like that and it doesn’t really add much benefit, although I am not sure if your diagram is 4 stations to one city or 2 further ones to different cities and the middle being one city..
So, lets say using the diagram above, that
left is (A) is city 1,
middle top (B) is city 2,
middle bottom (B2) is also city 2
right (C) city 3..
Then, think about what the civ’s might be doing.
- A>B civs head to work, so B is near this section of the city…great that cuts out some travel time, but to get home, they now have to go to the other station B2 across town.
- C > B2 civs are heading to shopping lets say, but they also must go to the other station across town to get home.
This can lead to civs taking the train to B or B2 and driving home with a car that magically appears, this is because of the added distance to the return station, unless you have a decent inner city network transferring passengers between both areas.
I have also tried B and B2 being inline at either ends of the city, but this didn’t work out too well either, it was better since the civs could return to the same station to complete their journey, but the delay caused by stopping at another station in the same city and loading / unloading just made the line perform worse than a single station.
Basically, I found nothing short of a large central station being the most optimal solution.