WHILE the company has received a lot of flak for it, I quite like the fact that Northern Rail still use fax machines to communicate with staff.

It made me smile to think of people gathered around those frustrating contraptions periodically emitting weird beeps, purrs and squeals as reams of paper spill out across the floor.

It is, as they say, a blast from the past. At one time the fax was the equivalent of today’s water cooler, where staff would gather and chat while waiting for their message to emerge. The problem was, that message was usually spewed out among dozens of others, so you’d spend half an hour trying to find it.

From what I remember you had to dial a number and replace the receiver, repeatedly reload paper as it used so much, and tear it off without ripping it. What a palaver.

That Northern Rail - regularly criticised over its poor service and cancellations - is still using them does strike me as odd. Apparently the company cannot axe the technology because of an agreement with unions, bosses admitted.

The revelation came at an emergency meeting called by mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham to take Northern Rail to task over its poor performance. Bosses told the Rail North Committee (RNC) that the train operator was using fax machines internally to communicate cancellations of rail services among staff and crews.

I’d like to know more - I’ve been on the receiving end of many a Northern Rail delay and cancellation. Maybe the company is still using typewriters and mobile phones the size of house bricks.

It’s funny to look back at the office equipment we once worked with. I spent a few years working in the Civil Service and used all manner of weird and wonderful appliances. In one office in London we used adding machines the size of biscuit tins. Called ready reckoners, their use was overseen by a woman called Rita, who watched over them like prison guard. She earned herself the nickname Rita Reckoner.

We also had clunky index card machines where you pressed a letter and it flicked forward to the right section: A for Anderson, B for Brown and so on.

I worked in offices in the early 1980s when typewriters were still commonly used. I remember using carbon paper to make a copy of my work - the coating was black and dirty and would come off on your fingers. And, of course, Tipp-Ex, which ran smoothly when you first opened the bottle but soon became lumpy and sticky on the page.

In one office we had a Gestetner machine to duplicate paperwork. It was the size of a Challenger tank and as noisy as a pneumatic drill. That also left your hands filthy.

Later, came modems, which enabled a small computer to send information to another through telephone lines, blocking the lines for other users.

Andy Burnham asked how it could ‘possibly be the case in 2024’ that fax machines were still being used. We should celebrate that they are. In the age of driverless cars and robots it’s comforting to know that there are still some outposts – although I admit you don’t expect it with a company as large as Northern Rail - using old-fashioned kit.

I remember once as an office temp in London in the late 1980s, being placed with a firm of accountants in the high-tech hub of the City, where the elderly male staff used large calculators made by Texas Instruments. Their female secretary, pushing 80, typed letters on a typewriter the size of a lawnmower. It was like being in the land that time forgot.

I like to think it’s still the same now.