Mike:
You may very well be right about the club cars.
I was strictly referring to the parlor cars. I have no recollections of where the club cars were placed.
Henry:
What you're saying may be so on the old fallen flag roads of bygone days, but was not so on Montauk-bound trains during the late 1960s and early 1970s when I was photographing quite heavily.
Unless the train was all-parlor car, such as the "Cannonball" the parlor was always placed on the east end and the coaches immediately followed. In some instances if there was a baggage car involved, the baggage car was placed directly behind the locomotive on the east end, followed by the parlor car or cars.
Ocala Mike is referring to the commuter club cars ("Locust Valley", "South Shore":4, etc.) which looked like the old heavyweight parlors from the outside.
Dave