Yes,
I frequently "impinged" on the Rock Island right of way when I was a kid. There was not much to do in P-Ratt Kansas during the summer, so I used to hang out around the RR tracks a lot. I used to watch the trains go by (there was a fair amount of traffic on the Tucumcari-Herrington line) and it was not unusual to see 100+ car consists with an amazing assortment of RI and SOPAC lashups. As the years went by, I watched the Rock go downhill and track speeds drop.
In between trains my brother and I used to walk the tracks looking for partially burned flares. Every once and a while we would walk past a tie with a date nail, usually from the 40's if I remember correctly. It seems odd, but I never tried to pull one. I was acutely aware of the fact that I was not supposed to be where I was, and limited my time on the grade ( I did not want to have an encounter with the local authorities ). We spent more time in the ditches picking up discarded spikes, chasing lizards, building forts out of debris, or watching storms come in.