This cog railway car design marks the final stamp in the long-running Transportation Series of U.S. stamps. The series began May 18, 1981, with the 18-cent Surrey design. Cog railway cars were developed from an idea of Sylvester Marsh, a fifty-four -year-old retired businessman from New Hampshire. After climbing to the top of Mount Washington, Marsh began to think of a safer and easier way to reach the summit. The first locomotive to reach that peak was Old Peppersass on July 3, 1869. A few years later, the Cloud began to make its way to the 6,288-foot peak, one of four locomotives built for the railway by Walter Aiken. There are currently about fifty-five cog railway cars in the world. The cog railway cars of Manitou and Pikes Peak Railway Company in Colorado ascend sections of 25 percent grade, with an average grade of 15 percent, and climb the highest elevation gain of any cog railway in the world. The science of mountain railroading, however, has been perfected in the high Alps of Switzerland, where there are currently twenty-five cog railways in operation.