I think I mentioned this before in the old forum, anyway...
Speaking of Class 22's, when I was growing up in the small village of Hermitage (on the Didcot, Newbury & Southampton Railway) in the late '60s, I had an opportunity to ride on a class 22 on the demolition train. It took the workers a few months to rip up the tracks, and luckily, the workers were very friendly to us kids at the time. The reason I'm reposting this, is that I've just found a picture of the class 22 I had a ride on: "6335".
http://billreid678.fotopic.net/c1430431.html
I don't know the person who took these pictures, but these were taken at Hampstead Norris station, just a few miles north of my village. The photographer is wrong about the date being 1966 (it's probably 1968). The line closed for goods traffic in that year (1966), and the rails, signals, etc., were left in situ for at least 2 years after abandonment (I should know, we had the run of the abandoned line for a couple of years).
Anyway, as others have noted, there's something very evocative about the "sad-eyed" 22's. In this case just about as sad as it gets... a railway literally in its last few weeks of existence
