Seems like it was intended to be like that.
As far as I can see into the model they just gave the verticals and the horizontal caps a simple colour.

But I can change it to be like ladder.bin

hard to tell - they did fix them for the metal ladders in T2. anyway, yeah, making it look like ladder.bin should do just fine.

Did the subdivide and some UV work on the ladder.bin.

Tell me if you like it this way and I will do the same treatment on the other ones.

looking good as far as I can see (fixed rod tops yaay). same treatment for the rest would do nicely, I believe.

You should check them thoroughly, it was quite a (repetative) hassle so I might have fucked up somewhere.
But hopefully I didn't.