Protesters delayed a train hauling nuclear waste to a storage site in northern Germany yesterday, rappelling off a 75-meter high bridge to dangle over it and block the tracks, police said.

Anti-nuclear activists build barricades before blocking a railway track yesterday in the small village of Leitstade in Germany. Thousands of protesters took part in one of the country's largest anti-nuclear rallies in years.?

As two activists hung from the bridge near the town of Morschen, holding an anti-nuclear banner, about 50 others crowded onto the tracks, said federal police spokeswoman Cora Thiele.

The protest stopped the train, but after the demonstrators on the ground were hauled away it was able to continue on its way, under the two protesters hanging from the bridge. Those two, and three others on the bridge, were taken into custody, Thiele said.

When the train reaches Dannenberg in northern Germany, the waste will be loaded onto trucks for the last leg of its trip to the storage facility at nearby Gorleben.

Near Dannenberg, riot police tried to stop some 3,000 protesters making their way onto the tracks. Some poured flammable liquid on a police vehicle and set it alight; police said the vehicle was still usable.

Police used water cannons and pepper spray in an effort to break up the protest, but some groups made it onto the rail line. There was no immediate word on arrests.

Early yesterday, 50 to 60 tractors blocked the main road between Dannenberg and Gorleben but they were cleared away by police. The roughly 20-kilometer road was lined with police trucks.

The train was heading toward the area after another one-hour halt caused by people on the tracks.

Activists maintain that neither the waste containers nor the Gorleben site, a temporary storage facility, are safe. The waste is stored in a warehouse near a disused salt mine that has been earmarked as a possible permanent storage site.

Though protests have been muted in recent years, Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision to extend the life of Germany's 17 atomic power plants by an average of 12 years has breathed new life into the anti-nuclear movement.

On Saturday, at least 25,000 people - organizers gave the figure as more than 50,000 - demonstrated outside Dannenberg, the biggest protest ever against the regular transport.

Germany receives waste shipments roughly every year under an agreement that sees spent fuel sent to France for reprocessing and returned for storage.

The train carrying 123 tons of reprocessed nuclear waste set off Friday under tight security. Safety measures for the shipment involved sealing the solid nuclear waste in glass that is in turn encased in 16-inch-thick steel containers.