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Here is good photo of Diolkos Wagonway: <a href="http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~klio/im/dailylife/diolkos.jpg">http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~klio/im/dailylife/diolkos.jpg</a> Notice the way the grooves depart from the centerline of the stone bed going into the distant curve.  That suggests to me that the Diolkos began as a basic stone roadway without grooves.  If that were the case, then negotiating the curve would have required steering the wheeled trolley carrying the ship.    It is anybody’s guess how they would have steered such a wheeled trolley that was carrying a very heavy load.  They might have just relied on yanking the vehicle to one side or the other as required to keep it in alignment with the road.  No doubt there was a lot of horse and/or human power at work powering the move, so it seems probable that steering was primitive and uncertain. If that was the case, curves would have been a challenge, so the tracks wandering off-center into the curve indicates the possibility that the wheeled trolley was not guided by intentional grooves.  Instead, the trolley simply wanted to go straight, and it fought the intentions of the crew to make it follow the curve.  Then, after running that routine many times, the wheels began to wear grooves.  So the grooves wandering off center are evidence that they began the operation without grooves, and the grooves were wore in with repeated use over time. What other explanation can there be?  Certainly, with the apparent precision of that roadway shown in the photograph, they would have cut the grooves centered on the roadway;  if they had intentionally cut the grooves.  ----------------------------------------------------- In thinking about it and looking at the photo, I can see another possible explanation.  The grooves may not be off center.  It may be that stones are missing from the left edge of the road as it heads into the curve.  Perhaps those are loose, recovered stones standing on the roadway in the distance.
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