A 336 km metre gauge line of the North Bengal Railway linked Saraghat on the northern bank of the Padma to Siliguri and it was during this period that Kolkata-Siliguri came up as a railway station.
From 1878, the railway route from Kolkata, then called Calcutta, to Siliguri was in two legs through the eastern part of Bengal. The first leg was a 185 km journey along the Eastern Bengal State Railway from Calcutta Station (later renamed Sealdah) to Damookdeah Ghat on the southern bank of the Padma River, then across the river in a ferry and the second leg of the journey. A 336 km metre gauge line of the North Bengal Railway linked Saraghat on the northern bank of the Padma to Siliguri. 
