For my twopenn'orth, I think that the key to catering for goods traffic is to make it plausible for the area served, for instance I might not expect to see e.g. cement hopper wagons, chemical tanks or bogie bolsters loaded with plate or tubes etc at a suburban terminus (though no doubt someone will prove me wrong )
As Joseph says, 'out of (passenger) hours', platforms could be multifunctional for any goods that do not require special loading and unloading facilities as exemplified above.