That lathe is tiny! Lol. Google some video of turning rail car wheels. Its makes the scale of that lathe come right into focus. I have family that has been machinists or in the tight tolerance machining business all their life. I once toured a facility that had a machine so large the operator rode along with the tooling in a cab. It was massive.
When I worked in the steel food can industry the plants I worked in had lathes the size you have pictured. We used them to make our own tooling. The dies to make cups for a 3" diameter can in a 150 ton press can get to a pretty large diameter so you need a good sized machine to sling the metal around....