VALOGNES, France A train carrying nuclear waste from Germany arrived in this northwestern French town Wednesday despite a series of delays along the way due to protests by environmental activists.

French officials said the five containers of nuclear waste had reached the rail terminal and would now be transported by road from Valognes to a reprocessing plant at La Hague, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) away.

Michel Pouilloux, the head of the state-owned nuclear reprocessing firm Cogema, said at least one truck convoy would leave Valognes later Wednesday and the remainder of the waste would be transported on Thursday and Friday.

The heavily-guarded shipment of spent nuclear fuel rods from three German reactors has met with widespread protests along its journey to Valognes with activists forcing the train to stop at several points.

But there were no militants in sight when the train finally reached Cogema's rail terminal in Valognes, where about 250 of the firm's employees had gathered to ensure its safe arrival.

The radioactive waste, assembled from three German power stations, began its rail journey in southwestern Germany on Tuesday.

Dozens of Greenpeace militants held up the train earlier Wednesday in Caen, about two hours east of Valognes, and several of them chained themselves to railway tracks, from which police had to cut them free.

The activists were quickly dispersed, and several were detained.

About 40 protesters also briefly blocked the shipment at dawn as it crossed a town near Paris.

They set fire to crates piled on the tracks, but dispersed peacefully after about 40 minutes.

The protesters said in a statement they were opposed to France becoming "the world's nuclear wastebin".

On Tuesday the train was forced to stop for about an hour several miles from the French border after protesters chained themselves to the rails forcing police to cut them free with metal cutters.

The shipment is the first to be sent from German nuclear plants to France in three years and follows a decision in 1998 to suspend such shipments after the discovery of high radiation levels during the handling of waste containers.

Last month, a consignment of nuclear waste being sent back to Germany after reprocessing at La Hague drew violent protests that temporarily blocked its delivery to a storage facility in northern Germany.

Pouilloux said the plant at La Hague expected this year to reprocess some 200 tones of German nuclear waste. Wednesday's shipment consisted of 24 tones.