Fed-up travellers who set up their own Internet page to complain about poor service have been forced to rename it in the face of legal threats.

Lawyers for the Great North-Eastern Railway (GNER) company said they would take action unless the "GNER" site was revamped.

GNER stood for Getting Nowhere Early or Reliably - but the train operator said the site deliberately copied its own Internet page. Even the GNER logos looked similar.

Internet consultancy Port80, based in Riccall, near York, was forced to take the action or risk being sued.

Director Jason Finch said: "Our consultants have to travel regularly between York and London to meet clients. They have become increasingly frustrated at GNER's lacklustre performance."

Mr Finch said the site had been intended to be a parody of GNER's own Internet page.

Solicitors acting for the company claimed the use of the GNER acronym on anything relating to train services was a trademark infringement.

A spokesman for GNER said: "GNER has no objections in principle to the creation of a website which seeks to gather information on passenger complaints and we welcome information from customers about the performance of our services.

"But we felt this site was confusing to customers as it used the same corporate colours as used by GNER on our own website and services."

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