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, New Scientist, Volume 92, Issue 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^[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^[2], 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