yep thats it. going to rebuild it again with the said changes and hopefully it will go!!!thanks again everyone!!!!!!!
It would also seem to be a case where the original schematic may have been drafted in crayon too. at which point all bets are offNormally, what you say is true. Unfortunately, in this circuit that is not the case. Look at pin 7 on the 555 timer; it's connected to the junction of R6 and R7, but there is no dot; there should be one. The circuit won't function without a connection there.
[eta]
OK, so I guess this was the page where you originally found the circuit:
http://members.shaw.ca/roma/train.html
It would've helped a great deal if you'd included the page reference in the beginning.