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Some estimates place the origin of the Diolkos Wagonway 2,613 years ago.  I would certainly call it a railroad.  It has tracks intentionally cut as grooves in stone to provide track guidance.  It is a solid, load bearing, stone roadway structure with the bottoms of the grooves being a stone surface capable of minimizing rolling friction of wheels.  It was a portage railroad for moving boats and ships.  That application seems logical as the origin of the railroad because it is where the earlier era of transport using water need a form of land transport that could match the load capacity and control of boats and ships on water. They say the gage of the Diolkos was 63”.  They don’t say how they measured the gage, nor do they speculate on the unit of measure at the time the gage was selected.  Interestingly, they say that there is evidence in some portions of the archaeologically excavated Diolkos that indicate that the grooves were intentionally cut for guidance, and in other areas, evidence suggests that the grooves were worn.  It is very interesting that the point would be blurry with the original railroad just as it is with the Roman and other ancient roadways coming later.  Seemingly, the grooves made intentionally for guidance, or worn unintentionally is sort of like the chicken and the egg. So again, this suggests the possibility that even the progenitor of modern railroads may have begun as a stone roadway, and only became a true railroad once the wheels wore grooves as an unintended consequence.  Here is a pretty good description of the Diolkos: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diolkos">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diolkos</a>
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