This sounds very much like expected behavior. Much of the economic effect of stations is based on which tile the station sign is at. For instance, payments for delivery are based on the Manhattan distance between the pickup station sign and delivery station sign.

It might be possible to change this so the local authority effect of cargo pickup and delivery is based on the actual tile the vehicle transferring cargo is at, rather than the station sign. I think changing this could be controversial, since it's one of the core mechanics inherited from the original game.

That makes sense, thanks for the quick response!

At the very least I'll add something to the wiki to explain that nuance, since it's been irritating me on and off for ages as to why some towns were growing and some not.

well, we could just relocate the station sign so it's always at the center of the station (rectangle) or something, just be aware that that might not be on an actual station tile with certain types of stationwalking/disjoint stations.

Although this would be nice to have, it isn't something we expect to fulfill in the next year, and on that basis I'm closing it. We do this to keep the project manageable, productive and fun. We hope you do understand. Thanks for contributing though! Here you can find more about how we handle feature requests.