Is there any advantage to having high rails in the front like the following two pics?
I reckon going with a Takayama style lower rail line is the way to go though…
My understanding is that you should have down rails up front and soft rails in the tail. ACE showed something once that blew me away. Totally opposite of a short board.
True noseriders, even with bricks glassed on the tail, ( and with that comment I am showing my age) have down rails in the nose. A 50/50 rail works ok also if you arn’t planning on having a barbeque up there. There are lots of shaping techniques that make a good noserider (or one that works ok and does other stuff too) here on Sways. Please do a search!
Low rails in the nose, high rails in the tail. A kick tail, and the foregoing rail receipe, equals long tip time.
There is a series of utube videos by James Maclaren called the Physics of noseriding you may find it interesting if you want to build a noserider .
Just finished shaping this one for Tony. https://www.flickr.com/photos/obaceman/sets/72157645298201933/. Hope this works.
…in those photos I see a 20/80 rail with and edge.
Down rail is a vague term like soft rail, low rail…
It s not the same a 60/40 down rail tucked to bottom than a 60/40 down rail with soft curve to the bottom, so you see that sometimes some body calls these last ones soft rails; but 50/50 s are soft rails too; also you have pinched, rounded, egged; all are 50/50s.
20/80s and 30/70s can be soft rails too.
Hard rails can be down rails and low rails.
-I want to notice that it s not the same to shape a nose rider like those big planks or logs to surf conditions like you have there in San Diego area etc, where the waves are mellow, long, and with tremendous amount of projection (you see that the guys even take off to one side but the wave rolls to the other side and they have time to turn have a position , etc) than trying to noseride in the normal waves around the world that in fact, do not have those conditions.
This is a 20/80 [?] rail with edge? 
The rails and bottom contours go thru so many changes on these things it is hard to define with a set number. This is a remake of a board I made for someone 15yrs ago that he liked so much he wanted another “before I die”. He does not live or surf in San Diego so they must work OK other places. I do not shape these much anymore but they are a fun challenge to get all the transitions going. I thought this was the type of nose the OP was showing and hope the pictures help in showing how that kind of nose can be shaped.
Is there any advantage to having high rails in the front
YES!
Nice photostream ACE! I can see what Sharkcountry was talking about there. I’ll add you on flickr when I find the keys to my account. Bill T and Surfteach Thanks for the info! gbxausa, I’ll check those vids out after I dust off my flickr account. Grasshopper, in the words of Ricky Riccardo jou mind splainin’?
I’ve surfed both down rail noses (Tyler Wingnose) and conventional up rail nose riders, and haven’t seen much difference in nose riding ability. I feel tail rocker and tail rail profiles have much more effect.