Industry could not survive without transport, and once again Amblecote found itself at the centre of a great many developments. Indeed if Amblecote became anything it was a crossroads. The main Stourbridge to Wolverhampton Road, following the Stour Valley along Amblecote’s western border remained a vital North/South thoroughfare, whilst other roads running East/West linked it with Bridgnorth via Wollaston, and Dudley via Brierley Hill. All these roads were improved by turnpike - the imposition of tolls - in the 18th Century. Around the same time an arm of the Stourbridge Canal was extended from Wordsley to Stourbridge through Amblecote, more or less following the line of the Stour. Today’s frantic and frustrated motorist is still constrained by this basic infrastructure. The only local road crossing the Stour and canal north of Stourbridge is on the Bridgnorth Road, whilst the direct route to Dudley still requires a journey along the Amblecote/Wordsley border along Brettell Lane.

Rail came, went and hovers precariously in Amblecote, with several goods lines constructed and since removed, and a line from Stourbridge, with a stop at Brettell Lane, now closed to passengers. Bizarrely, in these days of nose to tail gridlock, the line from Stourbridge to Walsall via Dudley still runs through Amblecote but with no passenger facility. The great men of the Industrial Revolution would have taken a few months at most to install stations along the existing rail route and take commercial advantage of a desperate commuter need!

One form of transport that has entirely disappeared is the tram. A tramline was constructed from Stourbridge to Dudley via Amblecote High Street and Brettell Lane in 1884. Initially powered by steam the route was electrified in 1899. Two years later an ambitious plan was realised with the opening of the Kinver Light Railway, an electric tram service running from The Fish at Amblecote to the village of Kinver. Local nostalgia often portrays this line as a means of linking the smoky Black Country with the fresh fields of the countryside for purposes of holiday and relaxation. Whereas in fact it was an attempt to draw Kinver (once a manufacturing outpost) back into the industrial fold. Both lines closed in the 1930’s, though traces of the Light Railway’s depot at The Fish still remain.

All these forms of transportation were impressively ‘integrated’ within Amblecote at the goods yard that once occupied an area in Holloway End at the north end of the bridge over the Stour. The Stourbridge Canal arm extended right amongst the railway lines, whilst adjacent road and tram links provided for local communications.