
End of the line for SNCF's “Béton“ concrete liveried, Nez Cassé 22202, awaiting its fate in Road 3 of the Sotteville Graveyard.
While some of the BB22200's were at Sotteville for warm storage between 2010 & 2012, the decision on 22202 was withdrawal and to scrap it.
The BB22200's were a class of 205 dual voltage Bo-Bo's built for high-speed running on passenger services.
Prototype 22201 was delivered by Alsthom (now Alstom), in December 1976.
They rest were built in batches from May 1977 to 1980 and April 1983 to July 1986.
They have a top speed of 200 km/h and a power rating of 5,600 kW (7,500 hp).
While built for French operations, a batch of 9 of them were used in 1994/1995 on Chunnel freights before the UK Class 92s were ready to take over.
Being one of the last classes of Nez Cassé ("broken nose") built, many in late 2025 are still working.
They are found on ICs, some TERs, with Infra and even a few allocated to Fret.
Other than withdrawals due to accidents, none was withdrawn until 12/01/2012.
At that time, most numbered between 22201 and 22226 were withdrawn while in warm storage, probably to supply plenty of spares to Rouen's Quatre-Mares Works for the remaining class members.
They were all ex-Villeneuve St. George, Paris, having lost work to EMU’s with a timetable change in May 2010.
All had travelled between 5 and 6 million Km’s.
22202, (5,660,265 km’s), was one of these victims.
Loco History:
Big thanks as usual to Christophe Hespel for his trainsso.fr database 🙏
22202 was delivered on 15/05/1977.
First noted in storage at the Sotteville Graveyard on 29/08/2010 with 39 other Class BB22200s, its last sighting there was the S.T.A.R.S for that Open Day by Dave Skelton, Richard Jones and Peter Bryant on 01 and 02/06/2013.
Presumably, 22202 went to the scrappers soon afterwards, probably in 2013.
Unfortunately, none of the low number 22200s CMR scrap convoys were seen by French railway enthusiasts.
So I am uncertain which scrapyard it went to.
NB: The 3 approved asbestos removal scrapyards at the time are in the album info section.
If anyone has more details, I would be very grateful as I am trying to complete a database of all the withdrawn locos: Graveyard arrivals, departures and scrapyard locations🙏 🙏