Open
Tywi Valley Path now open, Carmarthen to Llandeilo on the old railway
Thirteen miles of tarmac on the trackbed Beeching killed in 1963. You can walk or ride it without using the A40. You still have to watch the road crossings.
The Tywi Valley Path is fully open. The official launch was Friday 15 May at Bremenda Isaf Farm, in National Walking Month. More than 70 people turned up. Former rider Manon Lloyd, double European junior champion, came in with children from Nantgaredig Primary. The first four miles, Abergwili to Nantgaredig, had already been in use since April 2025. The last stretch was promised for Easter. The whole line now runs between the edge of Carmarthen and the Ffairfach side of Llandeilo.
The bill is put at 16.7 million pounds from the UK Government, with the county and contractors alongside. Some earlier write ups used 18 million. Planning talk started around 2016. Permissions on stretches came in 2017. The live project that built what you can ride now dates from a 2022 consultation. The railway itself closed to passengers on 9 September 1963, the Carmarthen to Llandeilo branch of the old Llanelly Railway.
What you actually ride
It is a shared path for walking, cycling and wheeling, mostly traffic free, tarmac, following the river and the old formation through Whitemill, Nantgaredig, Llanarthne and on toward Dryslwyn and Llandeilo. The old Llanarthney station sign is still there. Paxton’s Tower and Dryslwyn Castle sit above the valley. Merlin’s Hill is a short climb off the line. Detours take you to the National Botanic Garden and Aberglasney. Llandeilo’s pump track is at the eastern end if you still have legs.
It is not a sealed corridor the whole way. The path has to cut across roads. That is the hazard the travel pieces keep mentioning. Treat those junctions as junctions, not as trail. Red kites work the valley. Wetland birds work the river. None of that is a reason to ignore a car coming off the A40.
A Parkrun on the path has already pulled more than 200 runners. A half marathon and a walking festival were on the books after the launch. Sunday strolls were laid on through late May.
How it sits with the rest of the valley
The path is the county’s answer to a simple problem. The A40 and the A483 take the cars. The old railway took the rest, until it didn’t. Buses still run the 280 between Carmarthen and Llandeilo. Trains still serve both towns, but not on this formation. The Heart of Wales line is the other railway, Llanelli to Llandovery and on to Shrewsbury. Do not confuse the two. This path is the dead branch come back as tarmac.
It will also have to live with whatever the Llandeilo and Ffairfach bypass finally does at the eastern end. That scheme is out to contractors now, with a new bridge over the same river. Alignment arguments belong in that statutory process. Walkers using the path from Ffairfach should keep an eye on the orders when they are published.
Cafes in Llandeilo and Carmarthen are already treating the route as custom. That is the economic case the council sells: construction jobs first, then visitors who spend in the towns at each end. Whether a 13 mile path replaces a lost railway for people who need to get to work is a different question. It does give a child in Nantgaredig a way to ride to the next village without the trunk road.
Getting on it
Carmarthen and Llandeilo stations sit near the two ends. Discover Carmarthenshire hosts the map. Visit Llandeilo has a May 2026 edition. There is a public Facebook group for day to day notices. Start at Abergwili if you want the gentler first miles that have been open longest.
The Chronicle will come back after the first full winter, when the boardwalks and the road crossings have taken weather, and when the bypass drawings at Llandeilo are on the table.