While that's true, it does seem to be a strange thing to glamorize now, since as much as it was an engineering accomplishment, it was also arguably a genocidal pursuit, and it's doubtful the sort of projects the government has in mind now will be as "nation building" as expropriating the entirety of Western Canada and letting a single private entity have as much power as CPR does.

The parent comment just says it'll perform similar to how past similarly-shaped things performed, without saying what that past performance is. If that implies pessimism, that's not HN's fault.

Is setting expectations based on track record considered pessimism?

That says "laudable" not "laughable." They were actually complimenting the effort, even if some folks misread it

It's the default for any non USA story.