Nearshore surface sediment was collected with a petit ponar grab sampler between April 22 and September 17, 2015, at five sites in Puget Sound, Washington. Four sites were adjacent to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe rail line in urban and non-urban areas, and one site was in an urban area that was not adjacent to the rail line. Total and near-total major, minor, trace, and rare earth element contents of the <0.063 mm sediment fraction were determined by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy and mass spectroscopy. These data accompany Takesue, R.K., and Campbell, P.L., 2019, Contaminant baselines and sediment provenance along the Puget Sound Energy Transport Corridor, 2015: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2018-1196, https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20181196.