Hardinge Bridge

"This [ferry crossing], so far as passengers are concerned, is simple. They go aboard a comfortable paddle steamer, and if crossing in the evening, immediately sit down to an excellent dinner while their luggage is being taken on. The actual crossing takes under half an hour, and, so long as it is not interrupted by a sand storm, which is harmful to the soup and to the temper, forms a pleasant interlude in the journey. The transhipment of goods is a more difficult problem, and the varying levels of the river and a break in gauge do not make it any easier. But a great proportion of the extensive goods traffic on this line crosses the river in trucks carried on specially constructed flats towed over by paddle steamers. It is an expensive system and so long ago as 1889 the administration of the Eastern Bengal State Railway put forward a proposal for bridging the 'Ganges at Sara. Nineteen years later, after much discussion as to the site of the bridge, a scheme was sanctioned and Mr. R. R. Gales was appointed Engineer-in-Chief of the project. Thus the ferry system is doomed, and the bridge will shortly provide through rail communication between the jute-growing area to the north-east of the site and Calcutta. A very large traffic in wheat and seeds from the area to the north-west is also expected, and the gain in convenience, by obviating the present double transhipment and delay, is expected to lead to a large increase in the passenger traffic between Darjeeling and Shillong and Calcutta…..."

"From the Hooghly to the Himalayas" - Being an Illustrated Handbook to the chief places of interest reached by the Eastern Bengal State Railway, The Times Press, Bombay, 1913.

https://www.irfca.org/docs/history/hardinge-hooghly-himalayas.html