WASHINGTON – The National Transportation Safety Board has released its preliminary report on the fatal Feb. 4 collision between Amtrak's Silver Star and a CSX Transportation freight at Cayce, S.C. The three-page report comes 24 days after the incident and includes the facts known to investigators at this time. It does not attempt to draw any conclusions or provide a probable cause for the incident.

The NTSB has formed seven working groups to study the collision: Operations, Human Performance, Crashworthiness, Signal and Train Control, Track and Engineering, Mechanical/Equipment, and Event/Video Data Recorders. The agency has already issued an urgent recommendation requesting that the Federal Railroad Administration issue an emergency order providing instructions for railroads to follow when signal suspensions are in effect and a switch has been reported relined for a main track.

The full report is available online at www.ntsb.gov.

Trains Magazine will provide more coverage of the collision in its upcoming Trains Wrecks II special issue and Trains News Wire will continue to follow developments in the investigation as they happen.