Grouse hunters, trainspotters and the origin of gricer

The unusual term gricer is a British informal expression used to refer to:

• A fanatical railway enthusiast.

The term is a relative recent one (from the '60s) but its origin is unclear. The most accredited assumption is:

• perhaps a humorous representation of an upper-class pronunciation of grouser ‘grouse-shooter' From (ODO)

probably on the idea of:

• a supposed plural of grouse on the analogy to mouse/mice

and

• likening a person who identifies railway locomotives to a sportsman who bags grouse. From (Wiktionary).

Questions:

• Is there evidence to support the 'original" above cited assumptions?

• Are there other more plausible stories on which to base the origin of gricer and the verb "to grice".

• I couldn't find any usage from the '60s, can anyone provide early usage examples?

@RaceYouAnytime already linked the OED entry but omitted the rather pertinent etymology:

Origin uncertain. [Harold Dudley Bowtell reports it] to have been current in 1938 amongst members of the Manchester Locomotive Society... The suggestion that the word is a humorous representation of a ‘received’ pronunciation of grouser... or that it is formed on a humorous plural of grouse... on the basis of the supposed resemblance of train-spotting to grouse-shooting, has been reported several times independently: see Railway World ([June] 1970)... [page] 279, which also gives some other speculative etymologies.

So, yes, it may well predate the '60s in the Midlands trainspotting subculture and just attained greater circulation later. Can't find that issue of RW at the moment, though.

Edit: The OED's Dudley cite isn't online but there is this article on the history of the Manchester Locomotive Society:

Also two members were responsible for introducing a new word into the vocabulary. The word was "gricer". In those pre-war days they were holidaying in the North East [sic] and on 12th August found themselves on the Durham moors in the Consett/Waskerley area. The story goes that two birds were seen (whether they were grouse is not recorded) but as the date was the start of the grouse shooting season it was decided that the plural of grouse was grice. After that the word came into common use for a "cop" or a loco seen for the first time and today it is in the Chambers Dictionary, meaning "a train spotter or railway enthusiast["]... The Dictionary goes on to say that the origin of the word is uncertain but it was two of our founder me[m]bers who coined it.

This German thesis preserves Richard Robson's explanation from a now defunct page for the Hursley Park Model Railway Society:

Why are trainspotters known as 'gricers'? In the mid-1950s, a small party of Manchester railway enthusiasts were tracing the route of along-abandoned mineral line in the bleak Pennine moorland of County Durham. They came upon a shooting party and inquired of one another what they were doing. "Grousing" the shooting party replied in clipped upper-class tones. The railway party replied that they, likewise, were 'gricing', and both went about their ways.

A member of this British railway listserv claimed that afaitk it first showed up in an April Fools' edition of Model Railway News in 1964 or '65. The archive of this British railway listserv claims to have a rather thorough discussion of the origin(s) of gricer, but it requires a Yahoo Groups membership to access. Any takers?

OED's earliest citation can be found here, which is from 1969.

Well, we've preserved nearly every movable object (steam, that is) on British Railways, but perhaps the greatest unpreserved loss has been the gricer, or full time railway enthusiast.

• "Demise of the ‘gricer’" Railway World December 1969

A few sources seem to indicate that gricers were fond of collecting photographs of the trains they observed, which seems to support the comparison to "grousers" who "bag grouse." It also appears to have been common for gricers to pose naked or without pants in front of the trains they photograph.

The article linked above includes this detail:

Other features of the prototype include the inevitable cameras and tape recorder: with added luxuries such as multi-coloured ball point pens, binoculars, National Health spectacles and army surplus pack.

Dawn Gill interviewed various self-described gricers in the 1990's, and also emphasized the importance of collecting photographic evidence of the trains they spot.

Gricers are perhaps best described as the punks of train-spotting. They are locamotive fans who have added an anti-establishment spin to their pastime by eschewing the mere collecting of electric passenger trains, opting instead to take photographs of the big, sexy diesel engines that thunder along inaccessible freight lines in the dead of night... The trouser-dropping is a ritual; once the gricer is in the depot and has photographed the trains, he often drops his trousers in front of the train while his friend snaps him.

• Gill, Dawn. The Guardian 27 Mar 1996 (paywall)

Gricers do not collect numbers, they take photographs, usually of trains in depots after stealthily negotiating the obstacles of security guards and barbed wire in broad daylight. Once inside, dropping trousers or, even better, getting completely naked and climbing inside the cab and being photographed is the accepted way of proving they made it, as well as showing their disdain for those whose job it is to prevent them.

Gricers have albums full of their photographs, hundreds of trains all taken from the same angle... when one gricer agreed to send the Observer some interesting photographs for this article only one featured a semi-naked gricer. The rest were of locomotives.

• Gill, Dawn. The Observer 07 Apr 1996 (paywall)