gricer

English

Etymology

From grice, supposed plural of grouse (on analogy to mouse/mice), likening a person who identifies railway locomotives to a sportsman who bags grouse.

Noun

gricer (plural gricers)

1. (informal) A railway enthusiast, a trainspotter.
   • 1981 December 10, “Feedback”, in New Scientist, volume 92, number 1283, page 723:

     The train was stuffed full of journalists and gricers, as railway enthusiasts are pejoratively termed. Some of the gricers, earnest, fresh-faced young men, almost to a person, who cut their milk teeth on Hornby trains, had booked on this train two years ago.

   • 2013, Jim Warren, The Lulworth Triangle: 1‎, page 24:

     Such an eclectic mix of rolling stock also created the movement of standing train spotters and inspired the early gricers, those enthusiastic train photographers.

   • 2015, Michael Williams, The Trains Now Departed: Sixteen Excursions into the Lost Delights of Britain's Railways‎, page 22:

     This Delphi of railway enthusiasm, this holy grail for gricers, has a lure at least as strong as its grander contemporaries such as the Settle & Carlisle or West Highland Line, which were saved from closure and are still alive today.

   • 2021 January 13, Christian Wolmar, “Read all about London's Cathedrals of Steam”, in RAIL, issue 922, page 63:

     Betjeman, who was a bit of a gricer, wrote: "I know of no greater pleasure for elevenses in London than to sit in this tea place and watch the trains arrive and depart."

Synonyms

• (railway enthusiast): ferroequinologist, gunzel, railfan, trainspotter

Related terms

• grice