GREENVILLE, S.C. -- A trainload of 2,400 tons of contaminated soil, rejected by landfills in at least three states, is on its way to Utah for disposal, a Tennessee official said yesterday.

Frank Cochran, senior member of the Tennessee Public Service Commission, said in Nashville that officials of CSX Transportation Co. told his office the cars of soil were headed for a Utah landfill after sitting in a Nashville train yard for three days last week.

Greenpeace and other environmental groups, whose officials say the soil is contaminated with toxic chemicals, have been looking for the train since it left a CSX rail yard in Sumter, S.C., a week ago.

CSX officials would not give location or destination of the train yesterday. They have said that the soil does not contain levels of any chemical that would endanger human health.

pTC A spokesman for Greenpeace, Peter Dykstra, said in Washington that the only site in Utah licensed to take such material was a landfill 35 miles west of Tooele.

Tooele, with 25,000 residents, is also the location of a hazardous waste incinerator and an Army chemical weapons dump.

The soil on the CSX train was excavated from the site of a 1989 train derailment in Freeland, Mich., that spilled acrylic acid, used to make plastic cups and solvents.