I have a nasty grinding in the front end of a 96 buick skylark that makes it sound like a train any ideas

Brakes or wheel bearings, a shop should be able to diagnose one or the other, maybe both.

First check your brakes and front wheel bearings ASAP. Drive the car as little as possible to prevent further damage. Depending on what you find the solution can be expensive if and more so if driving is continued.

Have your front brakes check, sound like its the rotors grinding to a worned out pad ASAP. you don't want to drive it to long on those train sound. the chance is are, the worned pad may have chew up the rotors, if the rotor is too much chew up, and cant machine turn it, you will to buy a new rotor. if you need to get brakes and pad, ebay has 2 front pads and rotors cheap for 34.00 bucks plus shipping 33.00, total 67.00 bucks and if you can get your nearest auto part to come close or better than get it. hope that help.

1.Check the front brakes. See if the brake pads are so worn down that the brake pad backing plate, (Metal), is grinding against the rotor. (Check both sides)

2.Check the CV joints. Your Skylark has a transverse engine, with a transaxle. (Engine sits sideways)
The transaxle is connected to the wheels via stub axles, and has a CV joint at the transaxle side, as well as the wheel side.

Check the front brakes if the brake pads worn out or missing ...