Ah, memories... When I was young my maternal grandmother worked in a shoe store with one of those. My sister and I would give each other rides on it. :-)

BTW, the rails are probably made from mild steel, rather than cast or wrought iron, unless that store is pretty old.

Hmmm... I think I've even seen these with hardwood rails. A good carpenter could probably rig something which would work fine for the limited use one of these would get in a home.