Ok, i did some tests and loaded the model into various viewer/converter/editor tools. Here are the results:
DeepExploration 2.0: Loads and displays fine
Gile: Loads, but the instance objects are missing
Wings3D: Loads, but the instance objects are missing
Nameless OS viewer: Loads, but the instance objects are missing
jPCT (as already known): Loads, but the instance objects are missing
So the objects are obviously there but no application (that i tried) except DE can actually load them. I don't know how to fix this in jPCT because, as mentioned, i don't know where and how instance objects are stored in 3ds format. What worked for me was to load it into DeepExploration and export it back into 3ds. After that, all the other tools could load the file without problems and so could jPCT.
Without problems? Not quite...the file contains 3185 (in words: many!!) single objects. Merging them into one after loading (which is what you should do if you want performance) takes ages even on my not so bad Core2 Duo @3Ghz. You should consider to model them as one object instead somehow (maybe merging them with the fence object is possible? I don't know, i don't use MAX) or to serialize the Object3D after loading/creating it once.
P.S.: I'll send you the model converted by me to see for yourself.