Two protesters, surrounded by 50 others, rappelled off a 75-meter high railway bridge and showed big anti-nuclear banners near the town of Morschen, hampering the train for around two and half hours early Sunday morning, federal police spokeswoman Cora Thiele said.

He said after demonstrators around the bridge were hauled away, the 14-carriage train restarted and went on to its destination Dannenberg town, where 123 tons of nuclear waste will be loaded onto trucks and transported for another 20 km to a storage site near Gorleben.

Tens of thousands of protesters are gathering near Dannenberg, ready to hold up the train and show their strong opposition to the shipment. On early Sunday, 50 to 60 tractors appeared on the main road from Dannenberg to Gorleben and were brushed aside by police.

On Saturday, police said some 20,000 people - 50,000 reported by organizers - demonstrated near Dannenberg, the biggest protest ever against the regular transport, comparing with last 10 times of convoy of this kind.

The waste is to be buried 860 meters deep in an abandoned salt mine near Gorleben, as a temporary storage site, when a long-term storage facility is under construction.

Activists and opponents feared that the warehouse is not safe enough and might expose the public to excessive radioactive threats, either from accidents or unpredictable technological or supervisory loopholes.