$re = '/^[^\n~]+~[^\n~\\\\]+(?:\\\\[^\n~]+~[^\n~\\\\]+)+$/m';
$str = 'SS~B66\\88~PRELIMINARY PAGES\\M01~HEADING PAGES
SS~B66\\88~PRELIMINARY PAGES~HEADING PAGES
SS~B66~PRELIMINARY PAGES\\M01~HEADING PAGES
SS~B66\\88~MEKLKE\\M01~MOIIE
B~A310\\0~PRELIM@INARY\\00-00~HEADING';
$subst = "$1";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php