I forgot about that station! Now that you mention it, indeed I remember they were building it before I moved away
Looking at the track layout in OSM, I'm very surprised that the regional train from Roermond literally cannot reach the platform and passes within like 1-2 meters of the stop. That means that 99% of destinations in NL require you to first take a train into Maastricht and then backtrack (pay double) for the path north. Not sure I'd recommend that over Bunde (3km further, also free parking) unless your destination is one of the tiny towns towards Heerlen. Even if you want to hop onto the tri-country train (BE-NL-DE), which stops at the previous and next stations (Maastricht and Meerssen) and could simply stop at this platform, Maastricht Noord is useless to you O.o who is that rich person living somewhere along this track who funded that incapacitated station such that they can be its only user? xD
Nuth and Maastricht Noord are both not on any long distance line (they all pass through) so in that regard they are the same. You'll go first to Sittard in either case to hop onto the Intercity North. They are also neither on the tri-country line, in that case Meerssen is also not an option (it doesn't stop there, but passes through). It does stop in Valkenburg which has a big parking, but it's paid.
There is no train from MTN to STD. The tracks from STD->MT run alongside MTN but it cannot stop there, that I found at least. The platform is only built for the direction of HRL. That's the difference I see with Nuth at least, as someone who has destinations often north of the line maastricht-heerlen
You're right, a loooong time ago there were, but the removed the platforms on that line.
But, you're only a few minutes from Maastricht, so that shouldn't add too much time, and you get to get a good seat, since it's the start of the IC journey ;)
Maastricht Noord has a much bigger free parking, in case this part of the Netherlands is how you want to start your journey up north.