The Patriot is the name of this Colorado and Wyoming Railroad Bicentennial locomotive. Plenty of commemorative graphical devices here: there's a 1776-1976 banner, the bunting-clutching eagle, the official Bicentennial star logo (the one that looks suspiciously like the recycling logo), and a new engine number of 200. But the most outstanding feature is that nice row of stars– 50 in all!


This Con Rail electric locomotive has it all: a couple of eagles, the Liberty Bell, and those cool "76"s with the Mod Squad lettering.

Someone put a lot of thought into the stars on this one. There are 50 big stars: 44 white ones on the red and blue parts of the loco, and 4 red and 2 blue stars in the white fields near those nifty "76"s.

There are 13 stars in the blue field that's part of the Liberty Bell shield.

And there's more still.

In each of the "7"s, there are 12 tiny white stars, and the 13th tiny (blue) star is in the middle of each of the "6"s.

This one very nearly made it into the Editor's Picks.


OK.

This is not a locomotive. It's a boxcar.

And it's not commemorative, it's congratulatory.

And it's Canadian (not that there's anything wrong with that).

It does have some red, white and blue, though, and it is the thought that counts, so we'll let this one sneak into the collection–if they promise to add 4 more stars.