After the
Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft was founded in 1925 the Railway Central Office (
Eisenbahn-Zentralamt or
EZA) that had existed since 1906 was renamed to the Reichsbahn Central Office (
Reichsbahnzentralamt or
RZA). Amongst other things, they carried out numerous trials on
steam locomotives and created the scientific basis for the performance measurement of railway vehicles. From 1920 they were supported by the
Lokomotiv-Versuchsamt Grunewald, a locomotive trials office based at the main railway workshop at Grunewald. In 1936 there were 152 employees working for this research establishment. In 1945 the work at Grunewald ended, due to the war, and was continued in
East Germany at
RAW Dessau as well as in
Halle, and in
West Germany initially at
Göttingen, and later in
Minden and
München. The Office had instrumentation vehicles, a rolling test bed with water brakes for locomotives and test rigs for various vehicle components. ==Key personalities==