Morning town ride

Three bustling Auckland hubs at peak morning time. We send writers and photographers to Britomart, New Lynn and Glen Innes to capture the wintry awakening of another school and work day.
Britomart by Ewan McDonald
"I guess that when everyone hears 'Britomart', they think trains and the mayor going on about the underground tunnel and all that. It's more like that old song, Trains And Boats And Planes, except it's Trains And Boats And Buses.
"People who don't have to come into Queen St every day, what they don't really understand is that Britomart is way more than a train station. It's where all the trains and the buses from all over Auckland, like Papakura and the North Shore and Howick and New Lynn, it's where they all come to. They're all different colours, the Waka Pacific ones from Manukau, they're silver and they've got these really cool swirly coloured patterns, my favourite.
"Then just over the road you've got the ferries, the big ones from Waiheke and the eastern beaches and Devonport and that, and you've even got a little yellow boat that comes in from West Harbour every morning, about 20 people on it.
"You don't get any idea of how big it is and how it all fits together unless you're down here between, say, seven and eight in the morning. Mind you, strange thing is, even in rush hour, the train station and the bus stops never seem crowded. They feel like they're built to cope with way, way more people. It's not so much a rush hour as a few rush  minutes, every morning, and you know when it's coming, right on 8 o'clock, and by 8.15 it's pretty much all
over.
"Yeah, there do seem to be a lot of security guards in the station. There's one at the top of every staircase and another one at the bottom and a couple more strolling around. It's almost like 24, or some other TV show, or maybe the news. I don't know why they need them. Maybe they think that al Qaeda or the IRA is going to storm in and blow up the 7:45 from Swanson.
"People are funny, you know? The thing I notice is how many of them wear black. Head-to-foot black. Especially the women.  It's like it was against the law in this country for anyone to wear anything but black.
"They go on  talkback radio about  Muslim women having to wear the burqa, but I reckon some of those people should come down here around 8 o'clock and watch all the Kiwi women coming into Auckland. There's the most colourful guy around here, Mr Pink Pyjamas Guy, he's here most mornings.
"Yes, it is clean. There's almost as many cleaners around the station and the bus stops as there are security guards. Mind you, if you got here at six or seven in the morning and saw the upchuck on the footpaths and the broken bottles and the curry mess on the bus-stop seats, you'd see why.
"You watch the people on their way to work and they look down - I mean, they look down at the pavement and they look down like downbeat. You don't see very many of them smiling, they just stomp stomp stomp off the train or off the bus to the pedestrian crossing. They don't talk to one another much, they've all got iPods and earphones plugged into their ears or they're talking on their phones and it's like they're in their own little worlds.
"Some of them stop for a Subway for breakfast or grab a takeaway coffee and it's like they really resent having to wait for about  two minutes in a queue for that.
"Guess they don't enjoy going to work. Not like those guys on the bench over there by the platform, they're the other off-duty train drivers and conductors. We can always find a mo' for a laugh and a chat."
New Lynn by Joanna Davies
Noise from the unrelenting roadworks bounces around New Lynn's new transport centre. The jackhammers on Totara Ave start early. Screeching concrete-cutters slice through the air.
Students slouch on benches, deciding whether to catch the next bus to school. Everyone appears to be in uniform. School outfits from Lynfield, Avondale, Henderson, Green Bay, Liston, St Peter's, St Paul's, St Dom's, Kelston, Mt Albert and Mt Roskill.
Students mingling or avoiding each other, some smoking. Girls turning up the waistbands of their skirts. Some hold McDonald's paper bags; hash browns and breakfast muffins for the most important meal of the day.
A green Go West bus pulls up at the same time as a train rumbles through the rail corridor. Avondale College kids run up the escalator from the platform as the bus lurches forward, stopping just in time for them to board.
A group of Kelston boys in blue and red lounge on the benches and slowly shuffle to the queue as their ride to school arrives.
Construction workers in fluorescent vests talk on their mobile phones about supply orders and schedules, putting the final touches - the bathrooms - on a transport hub that opened nine months ago.
Glass panels around the station are already etched with graffiti.
An older Asian lady cycles into the "bike and ride" on a child's-size pink bike with a matching basket. She chains it up alongside six other bikes, one red scooter and four trolleys.
A group of teens wearing flat-peak caps and hoodies gather around the entrance, dancing to hip-hop from an iPhone. Conversation over the music turns from jokes to threats.
Girls see friends and exchange kisses and hugs, shouting "text me" as they part ways.
A middle-aged man in a faded jumper with untamed hair wanders around the station, watching everyone as he passes. One lap, two laps.
A guy with long hair and a dark T-shirt walks past the buses and into the station, filling New Lynn's morning Westie quota.
Parents hold the hands of primary school children with bright backpacks, catching public transport because no walking school bus stops here.
By 8.45am most of the school kids are departing, some late for class, others catching a bus in the opposite direction to their school.
An elderly lady sits among the last of the students, and as they get on the last buses to class, she still waits. Nine o'clock is SuperGold Card time, and she has hers ready.
Three boys from a central Auckland school walk through the station and wait next to her. They are late for class, but are too busy dancing and posing to worry about the time.
A man pushes his wife in a wheelchair to the station elevator, and Asian friends meet and wait for the bus to Sylvia Park, propping their walking sticks and shopping trundlers against the seats.
The bus stops fill up with older people and young mums pushing prams.
Security guards pace in yellow hi-vis, before wandering off because there's no drama here.
Glen Innes by Rebecca Blithe
A black Mercedes screeches to a halt in front of the Housing New Zealand office on Apirana Ave, parking parallel across several spaces. A stringy King's College boy exits the vehicle and gallops across the road, over the tracks and up to the Glen Innes platform as a train wheezes into the station.
He rushes past an elderly Asian man, who shuffles slowly, hands clasped over his  belly as his brown leather lace-ups scuff across the concrete. He takes a seat under the sheltered part of the platform, toes just touching the ground. Adjusting his cheesecutter cap, he blinks his dark eyes hard  before focusing on a particularly rotund man at the timber mill over the fence.
The man, clad in yellow high-vis vest and big boots, trudges to the far end of the yard as the smell of wood chips billows back to the platform and mixes with the scent of a morning pie shared by two Sacred Heart College boys, one tall, one short.
They scoff the remainder, dump the packet in a rubbish bin and saunter off down a concrete ramp.
Another man approaches the bin carrying a plastic sleeve of documents and what looks like a matt-leather purse without a strap. He deposits something from his bag into the bin, eyed by a slick-haired man sporting a shiny black bomber jacket and grey tattoos creeping up his neck.
An anomaly among the demure crowd of schoolboys and tired travellers ensnared in the daily grind, he looks more like a drug-dealer from Essex than a man heading into town to work a savoury nine-to-five.
Hands lost in pockets, he slithers past a row of commuters, leaving a trail of cigarette smoke that is waved away by a woman reading on the bench. Her book lies in her lap.
She sits alongside  other readers who seem to have found comfort in  sticking together, wearing their sneakers and corporate attire.
The reader, perturbed by the smoker's fumes, snaps her book shut and shoves it into a cloth bag as another train heaves to a halt at the station. Doors open with a hiss and a flurry of Sacred Heart boys storm the platform. Most carry heavy sports bags slung over their shoulders, some are wearing black, square-toed loafers that look like they belong to their fathers.
For a moment it is a sea of plum and navy, as the local schoolboys arrive and filter through the King's College students.
Down the length of the carriage, two guards appear; a vaudeville duo of a lanky sallow-faced man and a stout, ruddy-faced woman. They each raise an arm to shoulder level, hover for a few seconds on the platform's edge and slip back into their respective doors before the train snakes away.
Across the road and around a corner, a sprightly old man in shorts and thick socks enthusiastically gathers rubbish with the aid of a litter stick. Behind him a Metro bus sits idling, its electronic sign reading "sorry".