There have been a couple times when these were sold at "blow out prices" that made them hard to pass up. I picked mine up for, IIRC, $50- which included the built in decoder (ok, a Bachmann decoder, but mine has worked very well). At prices like that, they were a terrific value. My only complaint is the body is sort of "generic" and is at best a stand in for the Chicago Surface Lines prototype that is appropriate for my planned layout. But they look and perform very well overall, and, well, frankly, to date, no visitor has ever looked at it and said "the details on that don't match a real CSL car (the only reason I know is that my kids gave me a fantastic book on CSL trolleys for Christmas 25 years ago).
I think that the initial sales suffered a lot because just about everyone had one of the cheap Bachmann trolleys or PCC cars that suffered from all the Bachmann faults of the time- cracked gears, poor detailing, thick paint, and toy-like appearance. People assumed that the new trolley would be made to that older (lack of) quality standard. The Peter Witt cars are an entirely different animal- like the difference between a 1970s era Bachmann Prarie and a 2010-ish Bachmann Consolidation.
Anyway, I am entirely satisfied with mine- it was the first Bachmann product I owned that I thought was comparable in quality to Atlas or IM products. The Peter Witt encouraged me to buy some "21st century" Bachmann steamers- which have also been pleasant surprises and good values (at least, at the discount prices I paid, don't get me started on Bachmann MSRP).
