A side question, if I may. I am travelling from Didcot to Newtown Powys next Thursday. I have advance single tickets, splitting at Banbury, Coventry and Birmingham International. The last leg has a restriction on the ticket for TFW services only. Can I stay on the Cross Country train as far as Wolverhampton and get on the rail replacement bus there, even though I don't have a ticket valid on Cross Country between Birmingham International and Wolverhampton? I don't really want to have to buy a single ticket for this leg of the journey when it is already paid for. I would then presumably get a train from Shrewsbury to Newtown as orignally planned.
Thanks in advance.
As TfW are not running any services between Birmingham and Wolverhampton, ticket acceptance has been agreed with Cross Country (and Avanti and WMT) for passengers to use their services between Birmingham and Wolverhampton, so yes you can stay on the Cross Country train to Wolverhampton.
When I travelled on Monday, there were three rail-replacement coaches:
1) an all stations Wolverhampton - Shrewsbury
2) Wolverhampton - Wellington - Telford - Shrewsbury semi-fast
3) Wolverhampton - Shrewsbury direct
It was touch-and-go whether there would be room on the fast bus for all those wanting it, and the bus supervisor was getting ready to direct those who hadn't already put their luggage on, to travel on the semi-fast. Fortunately we all managed to get on, but only just. On the fast bus, we made it to Shrewsbury with about 15 minutes to spare before the next Cambrian train. I am not sure that those on the semi-fast bus would have made the connection.
Note that even if you catch the fast bus, it takes significantly longer than the train would, so you will not be catching the train you were booked on from Shrewsbury. It would pay to check the time of the next train, as the service on the Cambrian is often two-hourly. I left London an hour earlier than originally planned, in order to catch the Cambrian service.