THESE images are from the vast collection of lifelong Swindon railway enthusiast and photographer Bob Grainger.

If you live in Swindon and work in Marlborough or Cricklade – or vice versa – your commuting options are limited.

Assuming you’re not energetic enough to jog or cycle the distance twice a day, you can either drive or take a bus, but whatever your choice you’ll have to contend with fume-belching traffic crawling along overcrowded roads.

Commuters half a century and more ago had another option. Trains picked up passengers every few minutes and took only a few minutes more to carry them where they wanted to go.

Cricklade Station and Marlborough Station were both photographed by former railway worker Mr Granger, 68, during their final year of operation The stations closed to passengers in 1961 and to goods a few years later.

The shot of Marlborough Station is especially atmospheric, and apparently shows locomotive 31791 River Adur, which was built in 1925 and scrapped in 1966.

The sites where they stood have long since disappeared under housing estates and roads, but many of our older readers will remember using them.

Both stations were part of the old Midland and South Western Junction Railway, which was absorbed into the newly-created British Rail in 1948. It perished, like many lines, thanks to the rise of the private car and reliable road haulage.

One wonders whether the politicians in ultimate charge of British Rail would have allowed the closures had they known how crowded our roads would be by the early years of the next century.

The closure of the line is sometimes mistakenly said to be among the cuts ordered in the controversial Beeching Report, but the report was still about two years away from publication when the last passenger trains ran.

Part of the line has been preserved by the volunteers of the Swindon and Cricklade Railway, and the platform of the old Rushey Platt station is still visible from the footpath along the former route.

The other image on this page, taken at Marshgate in Swindon, looks at first like another from deep in the age of steam, or perhaps a picture of one of the many steam locos currently in preservation.

In fact, it was taken in November of 2009 and shows 60163 Tornado, a Peppercorn Class machine built by enthusiasts over 14 years and completed in 2008.