The E.554, successor of the E.550 and E.551, was the last locomotive designed for the upper Italian three-phase network. Like these, it also had five coupled axles and no leading or trailing axles. The first and last axles had lateral play. It was built mainly for the Brenner and also for other steep mountain lines. Thanks to its steam heating boiler, it was also suited for passenger service. Placing the traction motors in series or in parallel resulted in a continuous speed of 25 or 50 km/h. Between 1928 and 1930, a total of 183 were built by several manufacturers.

To ease running over the winding Bolzano-Merano line, ten locomotives lost their coupling rods to the first and last axle. These were now designated E.354, but the coupling rods were installed again in 1943. In the late fifties, some got one of three different designs of multiple controls, two of which required fixed pairs of locomotives which could not be separated in service. These pairs were often used in heavy freight service, while single locomotives worked as helpers. When the Brenner line changed to DC operation in 1965, they lost their main area of application. Yet the last ones survived until the end of three-phase operation in 1976 and today, E.554.078 and E.554.174 are surviving.