I have just come across this thread. I have an unmade Crownline Palbrick A kit (Crownline Product No. BR101) bought from W&H Models (remember them?) in June 1989 for the princely sum of £7.95... quite a sum as model kits went for 1989! The box has never been opened till today and I had to peel off the deteriorated selotape to peer inside and hopefully add to this thread. In addition to the etch, there is a Ratio 12 ft. plastic underframe (Ratio not Coopercraft!), a set of cast white metal (?) buffers, a pair of wire brake hoses, a few fasteners, a strip of modelling wood and some very detailed instructions (5 pages of them!). So whoever sold you the secondhand kit, Trainshed Terry, did you! As measured with my calliper, the Ratio sole bar wheelbase exactly matches the wheelbase of the etch but is some 1.5mm shorter than the etch, presumably to accommodate the headstocks either end.
I also have a note stuck on the outside of the box to the effect that the kit was reviewed in the July 1989 issue of Model Railways Magazine, page 358. So I guess that the kit was first issued by Crownline in June or July 1989 as I usually bought new kits as they were issued on the basis that, in the 1980's and earlier, cottage modelmakers came and went very quickly much like limited editions do now.
Whether I make this kit up or not remains to be seen. As one of the few early BR goods stock that has not been produced by one of the mass producers of such items, surely its time has come. Finally I should add that Crownline is not the only company to produce a Palbrick in the past. Keysers (K's) made a whitemetal kit in the 1960's and early 1970's (and 1950's??) that, for its time, was considered 'very good'. That kit remained available from leading retailers well into the 1980's.... or at least in their catalogues 'as available'! And we all know what that means!! Now did ABS (Adrian Swain) make one too?