Who doesn't want to go to work because the office fax machine is noisy?

It made me smile to think of the people gathered around the irritating device that periodically emitted strange beeps, gurgles, and screeches every time a wad of paper spilled onto the floor.

As they say, it's a blast from the past. Once upon a time, fax machines were today's equivalent of water coolers, with staff huddled together and chatting while waiting for a message to be sent. The problem was that the message was usually spewed out among dozens of other people, so I would have spent half an hour trying to find it.

As far as I remember, I had to dial numbers, change handsets, repeatedly reload the paper because I used up too much paper, and tear the paper without tearing it. It's so talkative.

It seems strange to me that people still use Northern Rail, given that they are regularly criticized for their poor service and cancellations. Apparently, the company can't phase out the technology because of union agreements, bosses acknowledged.

This was announced at an emergency meeting convened by Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, who asked him to raise concerns about Northern Railway's poor performance. Executives told the Railway Northern Commission (RNC) that the train operating company was using faxes internally to notify staff and crew of train service suspensions.

I would like to know more: I have experienced numerous delays and cancellations on Northern Railway. Perhaps the company still uses typewriters and cell phones the size of house bricks.

It's interesting to look back at the office equipment we used to use. I worked in the civil service for several years and used all sorts of weird and wonderful appliances. One London office used an adder machine the size of a biscuit tin. Their use, called the Ready Calculator, was supervised by a woman called Rita, who watched over them like a prison guard. She gave herself the nickname Rita Reckoner.

There was also a clunky index card machine where you pressed a letter and it flicked to the right section: A for Anderson, B for Brown, and so on.

I worked in an office in the early 1980s, when typewriters were still in common use. I remember using carbon paper to make copies of my work, but the coating was black and dirty and peeled off when I got it on my fingers. And of course, Tipp-Ex ran smoothly when I first opened the bottle, but quickly became lumpy and sticky on the page.

One office had a Gestetner machine for duplicating documents. It was as big as a Challenger tank and as noisy as a pneumatic drill. This will also make your hands dirty.

Then modems came along, allowing small computers to send information to other computers over telephone lines, blocking other users' lines.

Andy Burnham asked how it is “possible that fax machines will still be in use in 2024”. We should celebrate them as such. In the age of driverless cars and robots, it's comforting to know that there are still some outposts out there using old-fashioned kit. However, I admit that you cannot expect that from a company of Northern Rail's size.

I remember being an office temp in London in the late 1980s, when I was assigned to an accountant's firm in the city's high-tech hub. There, an older male staff member was using a large calculator made by Texas Instruments. A female secretary over 80 was typing on a typewriter the size of a lawnmower. It was like being in a land where time had forgotten.

I'd like to think it's still the same.