“U238 is an Alpha particle emitter; the radiation could be shield with a sheet of paper. Pretty harmless unless you breathe it, eat it or get it in your eye.
It is a heavy metal so it is pretty poisonous. But if these are solid parts none of those dangers exist and the parts are contained in a drum so even an alpha particle is not going to bump in to anyone.”
Uranium burns relatively easily for a metal, and disperses in the air as uranium oxide. That is why some airlines are changing over to other ballast weights. While depleted uranium from enrichment programs contain little U-235, the depleted uranium from reactor cores can contain much more and , in addition, other, more dangerous elements, such as plutonium.
Depleted Uranium from reactor cores would not be found in a drum at an airport or anywhere else other than a Reactor Fuel reprocessing plant or a nuclear waste facility.
You are correct in stating that the depleted Uranium from spent fuel would be mixed with the fission daughter nuclides of U235 and Pu239. This mixture would be radioactive enough that if in this drum would kill anyone with in that 150 foot radius in a few seconds.