Split Wall Railing? How Would You Do It?

[KTKArch]

My client wants a deck railing that is basically a solid wall on the bottom 2 feet and a baluster railing for the top 1-2 feet. 

Would you use a 2 part panel and a railing wall?

 

Has anyone successfully used a short pony wall system? This seems to ignore the lower wall definition only using the upper wall definition as the railing.

 

In attached file - on left is standard railing. on right is a pony wall with lower wall set to plan's standard wall for 2' and an 18" baluster railing on the top portion. All that is shown is the 'top' portion.

 

Example1 = real life similar

[dshall]

And....... That is right up The Great Glenn Woodward's alley. He probably has an answer......... A railing wall, the railing itself is the top half of wall. I do not want to steal his thunder....... Glenn, you around?

[KTKArch]

So what I found as a quick fix is to place a wall on the lower floor. Then drag it up in elevation to the railing's floor. The railing itself is set to the upper portion's dimensions off the floor etc. ex 1-3
Issues:
Must remove or add wall texture to deck beam(s). This texture must be rotated 90 degrees to match wall. ex 4
Decking runs through wall's exterior whether last plank is deleted or not. But works if last plank is dragged 'skinnier'. Maybe even shorter at other ends. Ex 5, 6, 6a
No idea how a lower floor wall is going to react over time being only located above its floor. Expecting trouble here and with the idea that other lower floor walls will 'see' this wall if they intersect it.
2D sections will have to be highly hand modified as it appears that beams and planks are going to be showing when you don't want them and gone when you do.

[Joe_Carrick]

If it was me, I would just create a series of 3D boxes making up the cross section of the railing and convert them to a 3D Molding Symbol.  The trick is to make them long enough so that you don't have a lot of short segments - not a problem in 3D Standard Render but with any Vector View it can look very strange if the segments are too short.