Kickstart creates 2 configuration files for same network interface

Your routes and configuration look fine.

$: route -n
Destination // Gateway // Genmask // Flags // Metric // Ref // Use // Iface
66.*.*.0       0.0.0.0    255.255.255.248   U   1003      0   0     0  em2
0.0.0.0        66.*.*.1   0.0.0.0           UG     0      0   0     0  em2

The first route, 66.*.*.0/29 with gateway 0.0.0.0 tells your computer to use interface em2 and then make an arp request to find the hardware address of the host you're trying to reach. This is a "connected" route.

The second one is the default route, pointing at your default gateway through em2. If you need to send a packet in another network than 66.*.*.0/29, your computer will make an arp request to find 66.*.*.1 and then send the packets to it.

The only thing in your configuration that could be an issue is the NM_CONTROLLED=yes statement in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-em2. This tells the system that this interface is controlled by NetworkManager. This could interfere with your static configuration.

However, even without any default gateway you should be able to ping and ssh from the 66.*.*.0/29 subnet to your machine.

Check layer 1 first, and ensure that the cable is plugged on each side. Use leds on nic and switch, and check if the system sees it correctly:

# mii-tool
eth0: negotiated 1000baseT-FD flow-control, link ok

Then verify if any iptables are dropping the packets. Use iptables -L or iptables-save to check for any rules, and iptables -D <rule> to delete them. Pay attention to the default policy.

Also, on some systems, NetworkManager can configure ufw automatically, and I've had issues with static interface configuration that wasn't seen by NM and hence blocked by ufw.

I usually do it in the %post section of the kickstart file.

for example like this

cat > /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 <<EOM
TYPE=Ethernet
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
NAME=eth0
ONBOOT=yes
EOM

And put whatever settings you'd like in there. I usually parse MAC addr with something like HWADDR=$(/usr/sbin/ifconfig eth0 | grep -Po '(?<=ether )([0-9a-f]{2}[:-]){5}([0-9a-f]{2})' or something like that and add it too so it looks like this:

cat > /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 <<EOM
HWADDR=$HWADDR
TYPE=Ethernet
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
NAME=eth0
ONBOOT=yes
EOM

If the case is that the device name have changed then there may be a file in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ created already by dracut. Just use ip addr show or something to find out what the OS calls your NIC, and set NAME=eth0 in the corresponding ifcfg-XXX-file. This should be simple enough to do.