Whenever I think of the Redhill redesign, it makes me chuckle. Glad I don't have to use it. Last time I stopped there the train went on platform 0 vice 2. I saw intending passengers sprinting like Usain Bolt towards the stairs because no one told them until the train was pulling in.
I used to use Redhill as an interchange in my commute from Betchworth and it had/has a reputation for poor information conveyance to passengers, with late announcements, crackling/inaudible p.a., unhelpful DMI messages and poor sign placement. The project to build p0 was a simple one in terms of passenger information provision but it was, to put it bluntly, shambolically-executed.
We frequently would pull in from Betchworth at p1 (before the p0 build) while a London train was standing at p2 (i.e. across the island) and be halfway across the platform as the doors closed on the London train! For want of, literally, 20 seconds, the incoming passengers were left behind. This was always especially galling as the London train was scheduled to wait for four minutes outside East Croydon, so holding it for 15-20 seconds at Redhill was immaterial to its timekeeping, but Southern refused to acknowledge that there could be any chance of holding the train to allow the interchange
even once passengers were already crossing the platform, robotically claiming that every second counted. The same applies now in reverse - I have seen so many cases where passengers have missed GWR trains while they cross to p0, arrive at the top of the stairs, then have to check through the wrongly-placed 'all departures' screen to make sure the train standing far down the platform is theirs (instead of being presented with a simple 'next train' screen), and start hauling their luggage towards it, only to see it depart!
This was/is a classic example of one of the main failures of privatisation - the blind drive for
trains to run on time, rather than
passengers. I'm so glad I no longer have to endure the awful train management regime there!