yep thats it. going to rebuild it again with the said changes and hopefully it will go!!!thanks again everyone!!!!!!!

 

Normally, 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.

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 off

 

Hopefully I have corrected all the errors caught by others. I noticed that the outputs of the 4017 are shorted together. I added D6-D13 and R11 to eliminate this problem. I also added R12 and C12, as shown in all schematics in the datasheet.

 

thanks guys gonna give it a shot. will post the results but just seeing the changes you guys made gives me a good feeling its gonna work. thanks again you guys are top notch!!!