During the Second World War, the Belgian State Railways had 50 type 553 railbuses manufactured at Brossel. They represented the third generation of railbuses from this manufacturer and were based on a prototype from 1939, which had been designated as type 552. Although the vehicles were not much longer than the German railbuses of the post-war period, they had two bogies, each of which a powered inner axle. The power for this came from an eight-cylinder in-line engine, which, like the vehicles, came directly from Brossel.
Some of the 50 vehicles of the type 553 were destroyed during the war, which is why initially ten and later another ten of the successor type 554 were built from 1950. These differed from their predecessors not only with a different car body, but also with better insulation and the toilet. While the older vehicles were later redesignated as MW 49, the newer ones became MW 46. In the 1970s, the latter received new two-stroke diesel engines from Detroit diesel with only 178 hp instead of 226 hp. The vehicles were phased out between 1985 and 1994, some of them were later used in construction trains. Only two of the 50 units of the type 553 were preserved, while about half of the 20 units of the class 554 are still preserved today.
