Voters planning to cast a ballot in next week's Democratic primary are mixed on whether Philadelphia is headed in the right direction, a new poll conducted by NBC10 and our partners found.

In the survey of 600 likely voters, commissioned by NBC10/Telemundo62, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com, 43-percent feel the city is off-track, while 40-percent say things are trending up.

Get the full poll results including who is leading the pack, by a commanding margin, in our follow-up piece.

Not surprisingly, improving education is the single overwhelming important issue with 37-percent of those polled saying it will decide who they vote for on Tuesday. It's an issue that could also be weighing on citizen's perception of the city's future.

“That number is more indicative of the right track, wrong track," said Richardson Dilworth, professor of political science and Director of Drexel University's Center for Public Policy. If the name sounds familiar, it's because his grandfather, with whom he shares a name, served as mayor and district attorney in the late 1950s.

“It’s hard to win on education," he said. "Whoever gets elected is going to do so with a lot of expectations to fix education, but there might not be a lot that they’ll be able to do.”

Bringing in new jobs and reducing crime — which both tied for the second deciding issue at 14-percent — were surprisingly low, Dilworth felt.

Geoff Kees Thompson, chair of the progressive political action committee 5th Square, believes the split image points to a shift in who’s moving into the city and getting involved.

“New Philadelphians seem to think that the city is changing for the better, while old Philadelphians have a more cynical view of where things stand," he said. Thompson moved to the city 10 years ago and says he’s probably squarely in the new Philadelphia set.

"I think the old versus new is a big factor. And I think that so many people are fed up with the leadership in the city,” Thompson said citing frustrations with Philadelphia City Council.

When it comes to likability, most of the well-known candidates scored a high favorable result and a few had nearly equally high unfavorability ratings.

There was one person, however, who outpaced all six Democratic mayoral candidates: Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey. The commissioner scored a 78-percent favorable rating with white men and black women having the highest opinion of him.

Ramsey eclipsed Mayor Michael Nutter, former Mayor and Governor Ed Rendell and School Superintendent Dr. William Hite as well, the poll found.

Despite his positive public persona, national stature and a large reduction in murders and other violent crime in Philadelphia, the question of keeping Ramsey as part of a new administration is one that has divided the candidates.

The ratings can’t settle well with candidate Anthony Hardy Williams. Last week, he said he would not rehire Ramsey if elected mayor. The decision, which he later doubled down on, led to backlash from Nutter essentially calling the candidate an idiot.

David Thornburgh, president and CEO of the government watchdog group Committee of 70, questions whether Williams would have made the same mistake knowing how well-liked Ramsey is.

“If these poll results are sound, then it would suggest there wouldn’t have been an upside to the decision he made,” Thornburgh said.

How much does favorability matter? Thornburgh says typically it means more for incumbent politicians and although there are not true incumbents in the race, he said candidates like Jim Kenney, Lynne Abraham and Williams have long-standing political careers and are known to the public.

“There are not any incumbents here, but many have long-standing records. So they’re incumbents in a sense,” he said.

So who would these likely voters cast their vote for right now if it was primary day? There are some surprising results. See the full report and all the data in our in-depth follow-up report.

The cause of Tuesday night’s deadly Amtrak crash in Philadelphia is still under investigation, but funding for the national passenger railroad has long been a source of friction amid complaints of aging infrastructure and unprofitable routes.

From Amtrak's beginnings in 1971 as a for-profit company, it has been under pressure to make money. Republicans have repeatedly promised to end its subsidies, and have tried to privatize the profitable Northeast Corridor — the busy line that Amtrak Northeast Regional Train 188 was traveling on Tuesday when it derailed.

David Gunn, a former Amtrak president, said that designating the railroad as a for-profit entity was never reasonable.

"The whole idea was they were going to just gently lower the passenger train into a grave," he said.

Hours after seven people were killed and 200 hospitalized in the Tuesday night crash, the House Appropriations Committee began Wednesday considering a transportation and housing bill that would slash $251 million from Amtrak's budget for next year, leaving it with $1.1 billion. An amendment to fully fund Amtrak failed along party lines.

"Every day, tens of thousands of passengers travel our nation's railways on Amtrak — a majority of those along the Northeast Corridor where yesterday's tragic accident occurred," said Democratic Rep. Chaka Fattah, who represents Philadelphia. "These riders deserve safe, secure, and modern infrastructure."

But Chairman Harold Rogers of Kentucky said that the Republicans, who are in the majority, are hamstrung by automatic spending cuts.

President Obama had asked for almost $2.5 billion for capital investments in tracks, tunnels and bridges, $400 million of it for construction along the railroad's Northeast Corridor.

The Appropriations Committee's budget falls far short of the amount the House had authorized in March in longterm funding for the railroad -- $1.7 billion a year over four years for Amtrak, just above the $1.4 billion the often beleaguered railroad now receives. The money must be appropriated before it goes to Amtrak.

The last longterm funding plan was approved by Congress in 2008, to run through 2013.

Even the earlier $1.7 billion amount disappointed rail proponents who had hoped for more money for repairs and upgrades. Conservatives, meanwhile, wanted to end all subsidies. The White House supported passage of the bill, which then moved to the Senate. But in a statement the White House said that while it would improve service, it did not address safety. 

The head of the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department, Ed Wytkind, told The Associated Press that the $1.7 billion failed to provide money to replace 100-year-old tunnels on the railroad’s Northeast Corridor between Boston, New York and Washington, D.C., and to make other improvements.

The earlier House bill did separate the Northeast Corridor service from other long-distance routes and allow Amtrak to reinvest its profits in the popular route to improve service. Those profits are now used to help subsidize the 15 unprofitable routes elsewhere in the country.

Amtrak carried 11.4 million passengers on the Northeast Corridor in the fiscal year ending in September 2013, making it the busiest railroad in the country. More than 2,200 trains operate on some portion of the route each day.

Across the country, the railroad had a total of 31.6 million passengers that year, the largest total in its history, according to the railroad.

Amtrak has struggled since it was created in 1970 with the passage of the Rail Passenger Service Act. It began service in May 1971 with a total of 21 routes.

Gunn, who was fired by Amtrak's board of directors in 2005, said the railroad was formed to relieve freight lines of the obligation of having to carry passengers.

"Amtrak was not set up with a vision that there should be a high-speed or an inter-city passenger network," he said. "It was set up to help the freight railroads get rid of a deficit.

From the start Amtrak was operating against federally subsidized highways, he said. Even the Northeast Corridor would not be profitable if it had to cover both its operating costs and capital improvements, he said.

"You don't have a policy on the part of the federal government," he said. "It hasn't figured out what role it wants passenger rail to play."

Eagles quarterback Mark Sanchez and linebacker Connor Barwin visited Temple University Hospital Wednesday, one of the hospitals treating victims of the Amtrak Northeast Regional Train 188 which derailed and crashed Tuesday night.

According to tweets at Crossing Broad from Temple Hospital's assistant nurse manager Matt Weidenmiller, Sanchez and Barwin visited victims and their families and also took photos with hospital staff.

Temple University Hospital was one of four area hospitals that treated victims of the crash, along with Aria Health-Frankford, Hahnemann University Hospital and the Albert Einstein Medical Center.

According to the latest reports, seven people have died and more than 200 are hurt as a result of the crash. The train was travelling over 100 miles per hour when the emergency brake was applied heading into a curve with a 50 mile-per-hour speed limit, according to the NTSB.

Jim Kenney would be the next Democratic candidate for Mayor of Philadelphia if the primary were held today, an exclusive poll conducted for NBC10 and our newspaper partners found.

Kenney, the former at-large city councilman, holds a commanding 45 percent lead among 600 likely voters in Tuesday’s forthcoming primary, pollsters National Research, Inc. learned. The only independent poll of the primary cycle, the survey was commissioned by NBC10/Telemundo62, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com.

Trailing behind and tied for second place — with 15 percent each — are state senator Anthony Hardy Williams and former District Attorney Lynne Abraham.

The last poll was released in April by The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) of which three of the local district councils have thrown their support behind Kenney. It showed a much tighter race with Kenny getting 26 percent of the vote, Williams at 25 percent and Abraham at 22 percent.

"This is really shocking,” said David Thornburgh, president and CEO of the government watchdog group Committee of 70. “I think that conventional wisdom is that everything was pretty neck-and-neck."

In the new poll, the remaining three candidates received single digit support: Nelson Diaz with 5 percent, Doug Oliver with 3 percent and the same for Milton Street.

Fourteen percent of those surveyed remained undecided, but the pollsters charged with carrying out the survey believe Kenney’s lead is so large that he will still win by double digits. (They admit, though, that Kenney’s lead is slightly overstated.)

Thornburgh agrees saying “there’s not a whole lot of time for a pretty significant shift to happen."

“He embodies a lot of things that Philadelphians love,” said Geoff Kees Thompson, chair of the political action committee 5th Square. He cites Kenney’s past support of progressive issues like decriminalizing marijuana and supporting minorities including the LGBT community.

"He’s been able to build a large coalition,” Thompson said. “I really see him as a candidate that people really understand that he may be white, but he’s been champion of minorities for some time."

Kenney has stronger support from both White and Black voters than Williams, the polling found. One in five Blacks remained undecided in this survey and pollsters say they could support Williams, but even if they all did, it would not be enough to unseat Kenney.

The “Who would you vote for” numbers echo the candidates favorability, which was also asked of the potential voters. Among the six candidates, Kenney had the highest favorability rating — 68 percent — and the lowest unfavorable numbers at 9 percent.

“It’s hard to make somebody angry when you’re an at-large councilperson. You’re not blocking anyone’s development in their neighborhood. You’re a little above the fray,” said Richardson Dilworth, professor of political science, Director of Drexel University's Center for Public Policy and the grandson of the former mayor of the same name.

“He seems independent. It’s hard to stick him with the kind of Dougherty machine for some reason,” he added talking about electrician union boss John Dougherty’s backing.

Abraham comes behind Kenney with a 59 percent likability factor followed by Williams at 47 percent. The state senator had the second highest unfavorable percentage at 30 percent. Dilworth says the number suggests Williams support of charter schools, campaign finance violations and “blunders” during the campaign like his recent lack of support for Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey have hurt him.

The poll found Ramsey was the most liked local leader with a 78 percent favorability rating — ranking higher than former mayor and Governor Ed Rendell, Mayor Michael Nutter, schools Supt. Dr. William Hite and all six candidates.

While most of the candidates are well known, the youngest mayoral hopeful, Doug Oliver, has had trouble getting recognized. Thirty-three percent of respondents said they never heard of him and experts say it has to do with his in ability to raise cash.

Oliver put $32,691 into the bank for his campaign compared to the more than $1 million Williams and Kenney each raised.

“I think to cut through the noise you need a lot of money,” said Thompson.

The most important issue to voters surveyed is education. All three front-runner candidates — Kenney, Williams and Abraham — have focused on the issue, but a majority of voters don’t believe the latter two are able to solve the problem. Kenney also has the lead on the issues of jobs, crime and poverty, the poll found.

As for whether Philadelphians are engaged with this year’s mayoral race, polling shows the majority are. More than half of those surveyed say they’ve paid a lot of attention to the candidates and the primary race. Another 42 percent said they’ve been partially paying attention to the race which has played host to dozens of debates and public forums.

“I was pleasantly surprised by how well, at least they said they were informed about the election,” Thornburgh with the Committee of 70 said. He and Dilworth both say that these results are most likely inflated, however, because people don’t want to seem out of touch.

With the release of these numbers and days to the primary, Thornburgh said be prepared to see candidates go negative to try and regain ground.

“The only way it could work to [Kenney’s] disadvantage is if the campaign sat back and did nothing, which I don’t think they will do,” the expert said. “I like to say the only poll that counts is on election day."

An additional safety measure that is being installed across the country was yet to be put in within Philadelphia railways where the Amtrak 188 train derailed Tuesday night.

The Positive Train Control or PTC, aimed at preventing collisions and derailments, likely would have prevented the accident by forcing the train to stay below the speed limit, according to National Transportation Safety Board member Robert Sumwalt.

“That type of system is designed to enforce the civil speed to keep the train below its maximum speed. So we have called for positive train control for many, many years. It’s on our most-wanted list," Sumwalt said Wednesday evening after spending the first day with a full team of NTSB investigators, touring the wreckage and downloading data from the locomotive's black box.

"Based on what we know right now, we feel that had such a system been installed in this section of track, this accident would not have occurred."

Sumwalt said just seconds before the derailment, the train reached 106 miles per hour entering a curve where the speed limit drops to 50 mph. The speed limit just before the bend is 80 mph, he said. The engineer applied the train's emergency brake, Sumwalt said, but it was too late. The engine and 6 cars shook and careened off the track, killing at least seven and injuring more than 200.

PTC has been installed at other locations along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor line, including stretches from Boston to New Haven, New Brunswick to Trenton and a 30-mile stretch of track in eastern Maryland. Congress has mandated installation along the Philadelphia tracks by year's end.

PTC was developed after the U.S. Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008, which urged these changes to be finished by December 2015. 

The most important goals of PTC are to prevent train-on-train collisions, focus on rail worker safety, and monitor or enforce temporary speed restrictions, in addition to line speed enforcement.

The National Transportation Safety Board has confirmed NBC10's report that the Amtrak 188 train was traveling at speeds of over 100 miles per hour just before the train's derailment.

One of the first faces some panicked passengers saw as they screamed for help from the derailed Amtrak train belonged to 16-year-old Chris Krings, who ran to the crash site Tuesday night with his dad after seeing a blue flash of light followed by a loud bang.

“We got back there and seen the train wreck and my dad said, ‘Oh my God, oh my God,” Chris remembered Wednesday morning as he recounted the surreal experience.

Krings and his dad had just wrapped up a grocery run to the Walmart, just a few blocks away. On the way home they saw the flash of light and loud noise, so they followed the sound of sirens and helicopters overhead down to the wreckage. They got out of the minivan and started running to the site of the crash that has so far claimed seven lives and sent hundreds to the hospital. 

Before he even saw the victims in the mangled train cars, Krings heard them.

“People were saying, ‘Help! Help! Please help!” Krings said.

Chris and his dad raced to the first passenger car, where one of the windows was already knocked out.

"We actually had to bust out a couple of windows,” Krings said, “And we just started pulling out people. Maybe 20 people in all.”

Harry Krings helped a firefighter get one of the first ladders up on that car, according to his son, and helped bring people out one by one.

“And one lady," Chris Krings said, "I heard my dad tell her to walk slowly down the steps. ‘Are you OK? What’s wrong?’ I heard him ask. ‘My stomach. I’m pregnant,’ she said.”

Nothing in his routine life in his Bridesburg community — days typically filled with family, being home schooled, working for a lawn care business, riding bikes with friends — had prepared Chris Krings to be on the front lines of a train derailment rescue.

“I guess you could say me and my dad, we’re like take-charge kind of people," he said. 

The ride home was rough. It was hard to let go of one particular moment.

“To the right of us, they pulled out a body and put a sheet over it,” he said. It’s the closest the teen has ever been to death.

“I told my parents, I told everyone, that to see that in person — I’ve seen that in movies. I’ve seen it in video games. It changes you. I can’t explain it, the replay in the mind,” he said.

Sleep did not come easy. Chris Krings would have headed to work this morning. It might have been a nice distraction, but he stayed home to nurse a wound.

“I cut myself running down to the tracks," he said. "I had flip-flops on.”

The Pennsylvania Turnpike is shut down in Montgomery County after a tractor trailer overturned. 

The vehicle overturned near the mid-county interchange on the Turnpike in Upper Dublin Township Wednesday night. All eastbound and westbound lanes are currently shut down. 

SkyForce10 was above the scene after the crash. The median appeared to have separated the trailer from the cab. 

Officials say the Turnpike will be closed for an extended period of time though they did not give a specific length. They also have not yet revealed whether anyone was injured. 

This story is developing. Stay with NBC10.com for updates. 

The Penn State College engineering department has been targeted by dual "sophisticated" cyberattacks, including one that originated in China, officials confirmed Friday. 

The College of Engineering has been disconnected from the Internet and a "large-scale operation to securely recover all systems is underway" in response to the breach. 

In a statement released Friday, Penn State said it was alerted to the breach by the FBI in November 2014. A cybersecurity firm hired by the college found that advanced malware was used to attack systems within the college. The firm confirmed that at least one of the attacks originated in China. Penn State said while there is "no evidence" that social security numbers, credit card numbers or research data were captured in the attack, some usernames or passwords may have been compromised. 

"This was an advanced attack against our College of Engineering by very sophisticated threat actors," Penn State President Eric Barron wrote in a letter to the Penn State community. "This is an incredibly serious situation, and we are devoting all necessary resources to help the college recover as quickly as possible; minimize the disruption and inconvenience to engineering faculty, staff and students; and to harden Penn State's networks against this constantly evolving threat."