Well I had a problem with my CANAC8C and CANACC8 test rig which after some help from the MERG forum I managed to get fixed, dodgy wire at fault and me probably programming it wrong. 

6 stock trays are now built and all my rolling stock has being unpacked. Some needs quite a lot of cleaning after being in storage but since nothing is running yet its not the priority.

Have built a couple of other MERG CBus Kits and now constructing the first CANSOL. The plan after that is to test it on my 3 foot layout which has two point motors connected already and not as complicated with the wiring as the main board. And also get used to the configuration setup. Test board is small enough to be located right next to the workbench and as its small its easy to move it around 

Have started with the DCC bus re-wire, this time I am having the microswitches from the PL15s point motors linked directly to the dcc bus rather than the track. At some point I need to unsolder the track wire connections. Also putting in a larger gauge wire for the main bus run. Bit of debate going on in my head at the moment for whether to use relays instead of the PL15 microswitches so bought a couple of 12V ones off ebay for a few quid so I can test that idea out on the test layout and link them up to the CANACC8. The only disadvantage I can see is that there would be a lot of wire going back and forth to the CANACC8. But eventually I want to use servos and relays for the rest of the layout so might test it out anyway.

So anyway all this re-wiring and building up MERG CBUS kits (4 still to do) should take about 3 months I reckon and then the original layout should be fully re-wired and I can hoist it into place and rebuild the topside and get on with the baseboards for rest of the layout, plus the mimic panels.