What is the effect of station length?

[marioxcc]

In mainline OpenTTD and JGR version I have noticed that I can fill trains slightly longer than the station length (I have not tried with trains much longer than the station). What is the point of building longer stations then? And more broadly: What is the effect of station length on the game? I searched the wiki but did not find anything.

Thanks.

[Gwyd]

If the train overhangs the platform ends, it takes longer to load. Longer platforms also expand the acceptance area

[Redirect Left]

You can send any length of train to any length of platform. Aside from it looking ridiculous in some cases, everything is much slower, and will almost certainly cause disruption on the network if you have other trains running behind it at any sort of decent frequency.

Slightly different, but worth mentioning
Station spread of high amounts may cause the game to slow down to some degree too, I'm not sure how big that degree is, but its high enough that the settings menu feels the need to warn you. Spread is total size of the station, and all of the components of it if you've linked multiple stations together as one (I assume the latter is where the slowdowns would be)

[acs121]

If the train's length is about the station's length, it will load at a normal speed (normally it's about 8 - 20 passengers per second).
If you have a 1 tile station for a 3 tile train, the train will load slower. And if you have this bad idea to make the train longer, it will tak more time to load.
Also, a long station has a big catchment area and can take and receive lots of pax / mail / whatever.