About those railroad ties

"He wondered why they laid the ties so that a man could not walk upon them decently, but had to go a step and a half and then a step or so . . . arrah, a bothersome thing!" (from The Man From Skibbereen, by Louis L'Amour)

We spent a good bit of time in my youth walking along the old Rock Island line that ran just south of Highway 10, and I remember wondering the same thing.