Railway=station as an area?

This assumes track number is the same as “platform number”. Besides having to know whether there is a track number, this fails to consider different stops on the same track corresponding to different platform sections. Tag:railway=platform_edge - OpenStreetMap Wiki
If it is recommended that local_ref= only be used on those cases, the data becomes difficult to check. A transit application using =stop and =platform only won’t have the railway:track_ref= on the railway= track. They would need to know this, and do extra processing to join the railway:track_ref= from the railway= track to the =stop .

=stop local_ref= != railway= railway:track_ref= :

Maybe somehow related @gymate recently Adding the track side to route=railway relation members